


Starkiller

by ktula



Series: Come As You Are [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: A Stunning Lack of Morality, Alternate Universe - Ballet, Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Armitage Hux is Not Nice, BDSM - referenced, Canon First Order Aesthetics, Casual/Consistent Use of Hard Drugs, Financial Issues, Finn is Doing His Best, Hitaka - It's Casual and No One Is Happy, Irresponsible Use of Prescription Drugs, M/M, Manipulation via Written Contract, Mitaka Trusts Too Much, New Beginnings, Phasma Has No Empathy, Phasma's Ring of Keys, Questionable Fashion Choices, Sex Work - referenced, Smoking, Steadily Worsening Mental Health, The Grand Mythos of Armitage Hux, Threats of blackmail, Unlicensed Physiotherapy, Unrequited Crush, audition, excessive use of alcohol, isolation tactics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-01-11 23:14:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18434120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ktula/pseuds/ktula
Summary: Finn is looking for a new start—and this audition is going to beit.Phasma is refining her exit strategy. After all, nothing lasts forever, and this opportunity is burning itself out faster and faster as the days go by.Mitaka is managing what he can, and gritting his teeth through the rest. It’ll be okay in the end.And Armitage Hux?Hux is consumed with bringingStarkillerto life on stage, but he’ll bring them all down with him if something doesn’t give…*Black Sun is hiring dancers between the ages of eighteen and twenty four for the debut performance of Starkiller, set to premiere later this year. Black Sun is a contemporary dance company based on the technique, rigour, and aesthetics of classical ballet, and focused on producing works that are expressive and demanding, with a distinct personality…





	1. Fusion

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter warnings are in the end notes.
> 
> As always, this work has been beta'd by Deadsy. Thank you so much. <3

Finn’s never held this much cash before in his life, and it sits in his pocket like a weight. There’s no possible way it can be more secure than it is—he’s counted once, twice, three times, folded it carefully and elastic-banded it together, put it in an envelope and then slid that envelope into another envelope, taped both of them shut, zipped the package into the pocket of his cargo pants—and even so, he’s been biking with one hand on his knee so that he can slide his hand down, subtly check his pocket during the trip.

It’s been a hell of a long bike ride, too. The truck stop is out the far end of the city and down the highway, way far away from everything else. It makes sense, considering what Finn’s come here to purchase—is kind of comforting, really—but it’s made for a long afternoon, because his bicycle is the only method of transportation he’s got. The internet at the library told him it’d take about ninety minutes to get out here, and Finn figures he’ll probably finish it off at about the seventy-eight minute mark, which is alright.

Finn lifts his eyes up, looks to the horizon—and immediately regrets it. Good news—he can see the truck stop now. Bad news—it’s at the top of a big-ass hill. He checks the money in his pocket one more time, glances behind him to make sure nobody is coming up his ass with their truck, and then stands up and starts pedalling faster, trying to building up enough momentum to keep him cruising all the way up the hill.

His thighs start burning almost immediately, but it’s fine. He’s going to keep going. This is going to be worth it. All of this is going to be worth it, because he’s been coming up against closed doors his entire life, and this time, he’s going to kick the door right the fuck open. All of this is going to be worth it.

He just needs to get this last part done.

Finn grits his teeth, stares at the highway, and keeps pedalling.

 _One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight_ , _two-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight_ —

 

The parking lot is completely empty when Finn arrives, and he dismounts from his bike on shaking legs. It’s because of the ride. It’s not because of anything else. Look at the size of the hill he just biked up, of course his legs are shaking. From the ride. (The twist in his stomach is not from the ride. The twist in his stomach is because if this doesn’t work out, he’s got nothing to fall back on—he’s only got this one shot, he’s only got—)

Finn unwinds his chain from his handlebars, locks the bike to the rusted bike stand outside the convenience store. Sticks his hand into his other pocket, digs out his coins, and counts. Not enough for anything substantial, but enough that he can get a drink. He pushes open the door, heads straight for the cooler to grab something cold, and then straight to the counter to pay for it. No meandering, no stopping to look at other things. Just—get in, get what he needs, get out again.

(He has his story ready. He’s heading back to the city, must have got turned around trying to loop around the outskirts, missed the turnoff. Finally figured it out now, ha, the kind of thing that could happen to anybody, jeez, what a goddamn mess, isn’t it? Hot as hell today, huh? Smiling, smiling, always smiling—it’s what seems to disarm people the most, has his entire life, and he’s going to rely on that for as long as he can.) This time, he doesn’t need it. The cashier doesn’t make eye contact with him, just scans his drink, takes his cash, pushes a couple coins across the counter to him. Finn puts the change into the take a penny, leave a penny container, and instantly regrets it because the container was empty till he put his change in, and now the cashier is looking at him—but he’s not going to undo it, because that would be weird. He doesn’t need six cents anyways. He’s fine without the six cents.

He sits outside on the curb, next to his bike, drinks his bottled protein shake and watches the trucks go by. There’s no security cameras out here, and he can’t be seen from the counter, so it’ll be fine if he just sits here. This is a good place to wait. (What if it’s a mistake?) No, no, it’s fine. It’s not a mistake. This is what’s supposed to happen, this is why he’s arranged it like this. Today is Thursday. Auditions are on Sunday.

This is all he’s got. It can’t be a mistake.

He looks at the ink that’s nearly sweat off his palm. The words are blurred now, but he knows what they were when he wrote them there. _White truck, red lettering, hauling pigs. Three pm._ He checks his watch. It’s two-thirty, so he doesn’t have much longer to wait.

But then it’s three. And it’s three-thirty. And then it’s closer to four, and then it’s closer to five, and he’s got gravel stuck in his pants from sitting down, and he’s been here too long, he’s been here way too long—

—but this is all he’s got.

Finn sighs, and leans back against the warm brick, and he just…waits.

He’s got nothing else going on anyway.

*

The sun is starting to set by the time a busted-up truck finally pulls into the lot. Finn doesn’t see it, at first—he’s facing the brick wall, carefully going through a dance sequence he’d memorized off the internet the other day, even though he can’t get any of the slides to work on the asphalt—but he hears it for sure, the engine making a loud whining sound as it pulls into the lot.

Finn stops dancing, turns. The exhaust coming out of the truck is darker than any of the others he’s seen so far, and there’s no load of pigs behind it—there’s nothing behind it at all, it’s just the front of a semi with no trailer attached—but it’s the first and only white truck with red lettering that he’s seen. He bends, picks up his water bottle, swallows back the last of the sun-warmed liquid. The truck is absolutely filthy, splattered in mud, with some of the letters peeling off the side of the cab—but this has to be it, this has to be it.

(There’s no pigs, there’s supposed to be pigs.)

Finn swallows, tosses his empty water bottle in the trash. Thinks better of it and picks it out, tosses the cap in the trash, and the bottle in the busted-up recycling bin next to it. Touches his pocket, where the money is sitting, but it’s fine, it’s fine. He walks over, across the parking lot, gravel crunching under his runners, trying to pretend that he’s not nervous, that he has nothing riding on this. If this is the wrong vehicle, he’ll just—he’ll have to head back, because he’s losing daylight as it is. But maybe this is the vehicle, maybe this is it, maybe this is—

Okay. He’s just going to do this. He’s going to go over there. He’s going to ask for his stuff.

He heads around the front of the cab, steeling himself. It’s going to be fine, it’s going to absolutely be fine.

The driver’s side window is open. Finn looks up. He can’t see anything through the window, but he can hear someone talking inside.

“—told you that there’s nothing I can do about the cargo, so that’s a lost cause entirely, and you just need to—look, I know, I know this wasn’t what I said, but I need you to—yes, look—”

“Hey,” Finn calls.

The voice inside the cab quiets.

“Hey,” Finn repeats, a little louder.

A grizzled white guy sticks his head out the window, scowling. “Is there smoke?”

“What?”

The guy gestures to the back of his truck. “Back pipes,” he says. “Is there smoke?”

Finn takes a couple steps to the side, looks at the back of the cab. “No,” he says. “Exhaust is pretty dark, though.”

“That’s a feature,” the guy mutters. His head disappears, and then the door pops open, and the driver swings down from the cab. He’s an older, rough-looking guy, wearing jeans and a button-up shirt with grease smeared across the chest. The undershirt visible underneath it is similarly grease-marked. “I’m running behind, do you need something, kid?”

“Uh, yeah,” Finn says. “You said to meet you here this afternoon.”

“Issue with the cargo coming over,” the guy says, opening the storage compartment on the side of the cab and rummaging around inside it. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“You had stuff for me,” Finn says, suddenly nervous that he’s miscalculated—that this is the wrong truck, that he missed the right truck, that there’s nothing he’s going to be able to do about this now, that—

The white guy is leaning back against his truck, eyes narrowed, watching him. “I have stuff for you,” he says, but it sounds like it’s a question, and it’s not supposed to be a question, it really shouldn’t be—

Finn swallows. The money in his cargo pants is weighing him down like a rock, but he’s not going to so much as twitch his fingers before he knows for sure that this guy actually has what he needs, because it’s looking increasingly like he really doesn’t, and Finn is sick with it, sick with worry and fear and anxiety, because he must have missed the correct truck, but it was pigs, the damn thing was full of pigs, there’s no way that Finn could have missed it, and this is just—this is just some old guy in a busted-up semi with no pigs, and that means he’s made a horrible, terrible mistake.

“What kind of stuff?” the guy says. He’s still watching Finn. It’s not what Finn wants.

This was a mistake, his whole—

“Look,” Finn says. “Never mind. This must be the wrong truck. I was looking for a guy hauling pigs who was going to be here at three, and it’s closer to seven and you don’t have any pigs. I’ll just—I’ll just go.”

It doesn’t feel better to admit it. It feels like his dream is dying, like he can physically feel everything slipping through his fingers, like the next two years of his life are going to stretch out in front of him indefinitely, just the same as they did before, and he can’t—he can’t handle that, but he’s just going to have to, because he doesn’t have an option.

This was it, and now it’s gone.

Finn shoves his hands into his pockets, walks around the back of the truck, kicks at the gravel as he heads toward his bike. Regrets it immediately, because that’s definitely going to be on the security cameras and he wasn’t supposed to do anything to bring attention to himself, he wasn’t supposed to—

Fuck it, it’s over. He tried, he failed, and he’ll just use the money for something else. Finn huffs out a breath, reaches his bike. Unlocks the padlock, unwinds the chain and wraps it back around his handlebars.

Then the guy calls out, “Hey—”, followed by a name that Finn can’t help but respond to, even though he’s been trying to train himself out of it.

Finn does his best to shove his shoulders down from where they’ve popped up by his ears, but his feet have already slowed. He stands there, still, in the middle of the parking lot for a moment, grits his teeth and tries to relax. He hears gravel crunching, and glances over to see the old guy coming his way. He catches Finn’s eye, looks down at Finn’s bike, and then gestures back toward the truck.

Against his better judgement, Finn follows, walking his bike through the gravel, and approaching around the back side of the vehicle. The old guy is standing up on the step, digging something out of the cab. He pulls back, looks down when Finn rounds the corner—and then tosses a battered old envelope onto the ground.

Finn stares at it. He’s vaguely aware that he’s breathing oddly, tries to steady himself.

“You could have said so,” the old guy says.

“I tried,” Finn says. “You were being obtuse about it.” The envelope is just a regular manila one. The flap is loose on it.

“I carry a lot of cargo,” the old guy retorts. “You need to be specific.” He turns around, sits on the floor of the cab with his feet on the step. Gestures to the envelope. “Take it.”

Finn sets his bike down carefully on the gravel. Forces himself to go slow as he bends to pick up the envelope, holds it in his hand as tight as he can so it’s not obvious if his hands are shaking. The envelope is thicker than he thought it would be, but not as heavy as it should be considering what it holds.

(Shouldn’t Finn’s entire life weigh more than this?)

“I have the money,” Finn says. “I’m just going to look at it first.”

“Have at it,” the guy says.

Finn opens the battered envelope, and—it’s all there. Everything is right there, all of the documentation in order—birth certificate, social insurance number, driver’s license, library card. School records. Marks from exams. Some kind of—some kind of merit award.

“You’re set up for a decent life,” the guy says. “No work history in there, but you just graduated last year, so you’ve got time. The rest of it is up to you—you’ll have to fill in the gaps, figure out your story.”

“I will,” Finn says. He’s staring at the id, turning it over and over between his fingers. It looks so much like the one he has that if the name and the birthday weren’t different, he’s not entirely certain he’d notice the difference. They did something to his face, too—he looks older in the picture, more sure of himself. He kind of wants to cry with relief, although he knows this isn’t an appropriate place to do so—but he’s sure that all his feelings are exposed anyway, because he looks up at the guy by accident before he can calm himself down.

The old white guy just looks away, holds out his hand.

“Shit,” Finn says, face heating up when the profanity slips out. “Sorry, sorry, let me just—” He doesn’t want to let go of the envelope, so it takes him a minute to get his pocket unzipped one-handed, but he pulls out the package from his pocket. Holds his new life between his knees while he uses both hands to undo the package from inside his cargo pocket, undoing all the elastic bands and taking the envelope out of the other envelope, undoing it all, and finally pulling out all the cash, everything he’s been able to scrape together. He holds it, for a moment, and then offers it out. “It’s $2187, just like you asked—thank you so much for this, this is really helping me out here.”

The guy swings down from the cab, takes the cash, pockets it. “Yeah?” he says, and his voice is indifferent, but there’s something in his eyes that looks a little—wounded. “Well, use it well,” he says. He hesitates. “I’m asking against my better judgement here. But I saw you dancing when I pulled into the parking lot. That your thing?”

“…yeah,” Finn admits, suddenly shy and proud, all at the same time. “I’m uh. I’m a dancer.” Then he corrects himself. “I’m gonna be a dancer.” Corrects himself again. “I am a dancer, I just—needed to get this sorted, so I could continue.”

The guy nods. “You any good?”

“Yeah,” Finn says. Swallows. “I’m, uh. I’m good, I just—needed this to get to the next level.”

“Well,” the guy says gruffly. “Good luck, kid.” He steps up into the cab, and then grumbles something inaudible, leans back out. “Wait a minute.”

“Yeah?” Finn asks.

“You’re gonna need this too,” the guy says. He reaches into his pocket and takes out Finn’s wad of cash, hands it back over.

Finn stares at it. “No, you said—I have to pay for this, it’s—” He clutches the envelope tighter, takes a step back. “Don’t report me,” he says, suddenly. “Please, don’t—you can keep the money, I can pay you more, just—don’t report me, don’t—”

“Hey, stop,” the guy says. “I’m not gonna report you. I just.” He hesitates. “My kid’s a dancer too,” he allows, finally. “A good one. So I know a bit about the life.” He takes a step toward Finn, shoves the money inside Finn’s envelope. “It’s tough out there. You’ll need the money.”

Finn blinks at him, staring.

Watches as he pulls himself up into the cab, starts the truck. The engine coughs, pours out dark exhaust for a moment before the exhaust clears. The old guy leans his head out of the cab.

“Keep out of trouble, kid,” he yells back. “Learn to drive before you use that license anywhere!”

Finn nods, too stunned and shocked and overwhelmed to even say anything. Watches the truck wait at the intersection a moment before pulling out, and then watches as it disappears off into the distance, until the red cursive of _Solo Truc i g_ fades into the white of the cab, and then until the white of the cab fades into the horizon.

Then he realizes he’s standing in the middle of the parking lot with a wad of cash and an envelope full of fake ID, so he carefully folds the envelope up, secures both items into his pocket. Lifts his bike up from the gravel, gets on, and starts the long ride back to the city.

He absolutely cannot stop smiling.

When he picks up momentum on the way down the hill, it feels like he’s flying.

*

Temps levé and two, turn and a four, saut de basque, saut de basque, seven and saut de chat, and then into the wings where Finn can wipe the sweat off his face without the panel having to see him. Everybody else is invested in watching the other groups—so Finn has the space to slip between the other dancers, tug up his tank top and press his bare back against the cool concrete wall at the back of the wing. _They don’t matter_ , he repeats to himself, the words echoing like a mantra. _It’s just me. It’s just me. Tombé pas de bourrée glissade fouetté sauté; balancé, balancé step step grand jeté. Temps levé chassé pas de bourrée, pirouette chaîné; step saut de basque, saut de basque, step step, saut de chat._

“Section C,” comes the call from the floor, and the synchronized thump of footsteps begins again as the next cluster of dancers starts their way across the stage.

“Hey,” somebody says from next to him. “Rough audition today, huh?”

Finn looks up. The dancer is about the same height as Finn, with pale skin, and brown hair. “It’s pretty intense,” Finn says.

“Yours is going well, though,” the dancer says. He extends his hand. “I’m Slip.”

“Finn,” he replies. “And thanks. How’re you feeling about everything?”

Slip shrugs. “Eh, shite, mostly. I didn’t think it was going to be like this.”

 _It’s Black Sun_ , Finn thinks, but he stifles it, stretches his arm across his chest and focuses. He’s not planning on saying anything—but when he looks over at Slip, he can see that Slip is still watching the other groups from between the curtain, a look of sheer longing on his face.

“It’s just the turn sequence,” Finn offers. “You’re cutting your pirouette short, and that’s what’s throwing your footwork off.”

“Huh?”

“Like this,” Finn says. “Here, watch my feet. And chassé pas de bourrée, pirouette-and-a chaîné. Now you.”

Slip frowns, goes through the sequence flawlessly until the chaîné turn, where he stumbles again, and then looks up. “Shit, group A is going again, we’re up next.”

“One more time,” Finn says. “Come on, focus—try a deeper plié before the turns, and engage your core in the pirouette.”

It’s not perfect—but it’s better.

“Good,” Finn says, and Slip beams at him. “Now come on, we gotta go.”

*

They get access to one of the rehearsal rooms prior to their interviews. The room is gorgeous—tall windows, letting in sunlight, floor to ceiling mirrors that appear completely seamless running the length of the room. Most of the other dancers are chatting in small groups, drinking water, towelling off, but Finn doesn’t know anybody here except Slip, who is still ghosting after him.

“I’m going to stretch out,” Finn says.

“Right,” Slip replies. “Good idea.”

The ballet barre that stretches the length of the mirrors feels solid under Finn’s hand, and he’s not scared to put his weight on it. He swings his ankle up onto the barre, leans into it, turning into his knee.

“Hey.”

Finn looks up.

“Zeroes,” the dark-skinned dancer says, sticking his hand out for Finn to shake. He gestures to the Asian dancer beside him, with fire-engine red hair. “This is Nines.”

“Finn,” he replies. “Good to meet you.”

Nines acknowledges the introduction vaguely, and then goes back to stretching out his shoulder.

“This your first audition for Black Sun?” Zeroes asks.

“Yeah, yours?”

Zeroes shakes his head. “Third,” he says, “and if I don’t make it in this time, I’m giving it the hell up, I’ll go dance with an experimental group or something. Every time I figure I’ll be more prepared because it’s not my first time, and every time, I get halfway through that goddamn class, and I’m about ready to tear my hair out.” He grins at Finn. “You seem like you made it through okay, though.”

“Aw, you just didn’t see all the times I messed it up,” Finn says, even though he knows that he didn’t. It’s safer to sound like everyone else. He’ll have plenty of time to stand out after he actually gets into Black Sun. All he needs to do right now is hang in there, impress the panel, and not alienate anyone he might be dancing with in the future. “How’s this audition compare to your other ones?”

“Class was better this time,” Zeroes allows.

“That’s _better_?” Slip asks, looking up from where he’s sitting on the floor, stretching out his hamstrings. “I thought I was going to pass out during the section with the—” He gestures vaguely with his hand.

(Finn guesses he’s referring to the grand allegro, which, yeah, he can see how Slip would have struggled with that. It was tough, but it was alright. Most of the tricky bit was not flinching when the rehearsal leader was glaring and barking out orders, but Finn’s used to that, so it hadn’t been that bad. His cobbled-together training is holding up, and that’s the part he was concerned about.)

“Dude,” Zeroes says, “ _Armitage Hux_ taught the class for my first two auditions, I swear a couple people pissed themselves. That bastard’s terrifying, he eliminated a full seventy percent of the batch before the class was even finished. We were fucking lucky to get Phasma.”

Slip whistles. “Unbelievable,” he mutters.

“I’d expected Hux would be on the panel for this, actually,” Finn says, casually. Like he hasn’t been wondering the entire time whether he’d actually get to see Armitage Hux in person. He’s seen all of the Black Sun footage online, watched it over and over again until it burned into the back of his brain. He wants to see what the man looks in person. (He wants to see if the legend is actually human.)

“Glad he’s not,” Slip mutters. “I’d be on my ass for sure.”

Nines paces back over, holds his hand out to Zeroes, who takes it and starts stretching him out without a word. “Your audition’s been good,” he says to Finn.

“Thanks,” Finn says.

“Technique’s odd, though.”

“Be nice,” Zeroes murmurs.

Finn shrugs a shoulder, continues stretching. He doesn’t want to encourage this line of conversation, because there’s nothing to share. Because it won’t matter once he gets in, once he gets in he’ll be training with Armitage Hux—he just needs to get in, just needs to ace the interview to seal the deal, needs to look like he’s professional, like he’s going to listen to everything they tell him, learn it immediately and mimic it back exactly how it’s supposed to look—

“Who’d you train with?” Nines continues.

“Bunch of people,” Finn says vaguely. “Here and there. Been around.”

“Mmm,” Nines says. “Which companies?”

“Here,” Zeroes says. “Give me your other arm, and quit harassing him. I know you’re cranky, but Finn is perfectly nice, and I’m gonna hang out with him once we get into Black Sun.”

“I don’t think we’re all gonna make it,” Slip says.

“We’ll make it,” Zeroes says. “I’ve been watching their faces, and I’ve been watching everybody else perform. We’ve got an edge.”

Finn looks up at him. Zeroes is looking at him, is looking at Nines—isn’t looking at Slip. Before Slip looks up and notices, Finn starts talking. “Hey, so—the dark-haired guy.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the blonde tips, far end of the table,” Finn says.

“Ah, Darius.”

“Who’s he?”

“Artistic director,” Slip offers from the floor. “I don’t know much, but I do know that.”

“I thought that was the guy next to him,” Finn says. “With the bowtie.”

“That’s Dopheld Mitaka, he’s their stage manager,” Nines says.

“He’s the one you should be impressing,” Zeroes adds. “Him and Phasma.”

“That makes no goddamn sense,” Slip says. “Stage manager is, like, an administrative position.”

Nines raises an eyebrow at him. “Well, feel free to suck up to Darius, then. See how far it gets you.” He shrugs his shoulder, pats Zeroes on the back. “I’ll have my arm back now.”

“Alright,” comes the voice from the door. “Everyone up off your asses, I won’t say it again.”

Finn straightens, turns to the door.

Phasma is standing there, long blonde hair slicked back from her face, looking just as wet now as it did first thing in the morning. Her white clipboard matches her high heels, and her black trousers and red silk blouse look as though she just stepped out of a modelling portfolio rather than something that she wore to spend all morning yelling at dancers, and now all afternoon conducting interviews.

 _Pick me_ , Finn thinks. _I can do this. Let me impress you._

She holds up the closed clipboard. “This is the shortlist,” she says, without preamble. “If your name is here, you’ve got a chance. If it’s not, you don’t.” She smiles viciously. “We’re taking four people. It’ll be the first four, if you all pass your interviews. If you’re going to shank some of your competitors so you get a spot, now’s the time. I’d step away from the dancer with the shaved head in the back, he looks like he’s going to be sick.” She flips open the clipboard. “L. Yang, you’re up.”

Nines grins, touches his fingers to his forehead. “See you on the other side.”

“Bastard,” Zeroes says fondly. “I’ll lose your number if you get in and I don’t.”

Finn takes a deep breath, doesn’t exhale until after Phasma leaves the room, Nines following behind her.

“I’m doomed,” Slip says softly.

“Eh, come on,” Finn says. “You had it, after a bit.”

Slip scowls down at the floor. “I’m going for a walk,” he says. “Can’t keep focusing on this.”

And then it’s just Finn and Zeroes, standing in the back corner. Finn wants to know—fuck, he wants to know everything. How many of the other dancers does Zeroes recognize, how many people does he figure are going to make it in? Where does he think he stands—and where does he think Finn stands?

_Who’d you train with?_

But it’s easier just to say nothing, to cultivate a stoic persona. Keep his head down, and his mouth shut. It’s served him well before—and it’ll serve him well again.

The door opens again, and Finn looks up.

*

The second person called is a tall white guy, from the other side of the room. The third person is a woman. The fourth is Zeroes.

“Break a leg,” Zeroes breathes.

Finn nods, bites his lip.

Waits.

_Pick me, pick me, pick me._

_*_

The door opens.

The clipboard is brandished.

“Finn,” she says.

Finn exhales hard, stands. Tucks his hands behind his back so that she can’t see him shaking, and follows her back onto the stage.

“Centre mark,” she says casually, pacing across the stage and then stepping down off it before taking a seat at the left end of the table.

Finn moves to the mark indicated, centres himself, takes a deep breath. The entire hall is dark, with a spotlight on the middle of the stage, and bright lights illuminating the table on the floor in front of the stage.

Finn looks down at the table in front of him. Phasma is sitting on his left, long legs extended out into the aisle. There’s nothing in front of her but the clipboard, with a list of names on it. Next to her is the stage manager, Mitaka. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt with a leather bowtie, and black-framed glasses. His tablet is in front of him, and he’s tapping the stylus lightly on the table. His face is pinched, and he looks tense. On the right side of the table, Darius—the only one who looks as though he’s enjoying himself. There’s a gold chain around his neck, and his Hawaiian shirt is half unbuttoned, hanging untucked from his tight white pants.

“Go ahead,” Mitaka says quietly.

“So kind of you,” Phasma drawls. She looks up at Finn. “So,” she says. “Your resume.”

“Yes,” Finn says, looking her straight in the eye even though anxiety curls in his gut.

“There’s nothing on your resume of any note whatsoever,” she continues, mouth curling up in a vicious smile. “Explain.”

“I’ve moved around a lot,” Finn says, doing his best to keep his voice even. “I work hard, and I practise constantly. What’s on my resume is what I have. But I know how to dance.” _I know I don’t have the training the other people have. I know I don’t have the credentials. I know I don’t have the awards. But I know how to dance. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me._

“There’s a certain standard,” Darius says from the other side of the table. “A certain calibre of performer that is required in order to maintain the standards we have in Black Sun, particularly concerning the technical level required for _Starkiller_. It’s important that—”

There’s a sudden crash from the back of the hall as a door opens suddenly. Light from outside illuminates the aisle down to the centre of the stage. The figure coming into the theatre is tall and thin, in bare feet and black tights with a pale blue oversized sweater on top, and, as he comes into the light, sharp cheekbones and a shock of red hair hanging loose over his face become visible.

Armitage Hux, in the flesh.

He strides up to the table with a dancer’s grace, puts his hand on Darius’s shoulder and drags it down his back while he leans in close. “Snoke called me again,” Hux says, his accent crisp and precise, voice low—but loud enough that Finn can hear it from the stage, as long as he concentrates. “I want you to make—it— _stop_.”

(As Finn watches, Hux extends his other hand to Mitaka, palms a wallet-sized case over to him.)

“Right away,” Darius says, and then, with no further ado, he stands up, offers his chair to Hux, and leaves the theatre.

Hux wipes his knuckle under his nose, sniffs loudly, and sits down in the chair, looking up at Finn. “You did good work today,” Hux says. “Took Phasma’s direction well.”

Finn inclines his head. “Thank you.”

“Shit resume,” Phasma says from the other side of the table.

“So you’ve said,” Mitaka says softly.

Hux leans over toward Mitaka, looks at the datapad. Raises his eyebrow. “You’re the dissenting vote?”

“Apparently I am now,” Mitaka says. “Darius was in agreement with me.”

“Well, he was wrong,” Hux says dismissively. “It was a tolerable performance today. Phasma can have him, if she likes—if she thinks she can make something out of him. He’ll be her problem anyway.”

“I won’t be a problem,” Finn says.

All three of them turns and look at him, and he figures he’s fucked—and then Phasma, inexplicably, grins, and laughs.

“I like him,” she declares. “I’ll keep him.”

Mitaka pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses. “ID, please,” he says, resigned.

Finn freezes. “Uh.”

The man looks up at him. “Your identification,” he repeats.

“Right,” Finn says. He reaches for the zippered pocket on the side of his hoodie, undoes it. Touches his fingertips against the two cards that are in there—one of them right in the pocket, the other tucked away in a hidden interior pocket. He pulls the new one out, and jumps lightly off the stage in order to hand it over.

When Mitaka ducks his head to scrutinize the card, there’s a tattoo visible on the back of his neck. A circle, divided with curved lines into three sections, a dot in each—

“Your contract,” Mitaka says, flipping open one of the folders, and pushing a document across the table to Finn, setting Finn’s ID down on top. “I’ll need this back and signed first thing in the morning tomorrow, or you won’t be able to dance.” He looks up at Finn. “Welcome to Black Sun.”

“Thank you,” Finn says, clutching onto the ID and the contract like it’s a lifeline—because it is. “Thank you so much.”

*

Zeroes smiles when Finn comes into the side room. “Told you,” he says, grinning. “Told you you’d make it.”

Finn grins right back at him. “I made it!”

“Good for you,” Nines says easily. He looks smug.

“Is it just the three of us?” Finn asks.

“So far,” Zeroes says. “They said they were taking four, so I guess we’re just waiting on another interview.”

It’s not long that they wait, either—another hour, and then Slip comes into the room, looking vaguely ill.

“I told you that you’d do well,” Finn says.

“I don’t know why they took me,” Slip says in a strained whisper. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

“Hey,” Finn says softly. “It’s okay. It’ll be okay, we made it. We’re part of Black Sun. We’re professional dancers.”

“I mean,” Zeroes says, “I’ve always been a professional dancer, but go off, I guess.” He slings his arms around their shoulders. “You ready to get started? Discover all the mysteries of Black Sun?”

“So ready,” Finn says, feeling the joy bubbling up inside him, and unwilling to temper his enthusiasm. “And, hey, speaking of the mysteries of Black Sun—did you notice the triskelion tattooed on the back of Mitaka’s neck?”

“The what?” Zeroes asks.

“You know,” Finn says. “It’s a symbol for…” And then he realizes that Zeroes doesn’t know, and Nines and Slip are looking at him strangely, and this is—this is bad, because it’s making him stand out in ways that he doesn’t want to stand out, and he can feel his face heating up, and he needs to fix this—he needs to fix this immediately, he needs to redirect the conversation somehow, he needs to… “Hey, you know a fair number of people here, huh?”

“I do,” Zeroes allows.

“Ever heard of a dancer named Solo?”

Zeroes thinks about it for a minute. “Can’t say as I have,” he says, finally. “He from around here?”

“I think so, yeah,” Finn says.

“Definitely not, then,” Zeroes says. “I’d know of them if they were any good. Buddy of yours?”

“Nah,” Finn says. “Heard they were pretty good, but if you don’t know who they are…”

Zeroes grins, pats Finn’s shoulder. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”

“Well, well, well,” Phasma says, leaning against the door and grinning at them wolfishly. “Fast friends already, hmm?”

“Ma’am,” Finn says automatically, straightening and putting his hands behind his back.

She grins at him, but there’s no humour or emotion in it. “Here’s the deal for the rest of the day. You’ll get a tour of the studio, and shown where to put your things. Do what you like for the rest of the evening—it’s the last evening you’ll have for a while. Some of you have day jobs that you need to give notice at—do that as soon as possible.”

“For those of us without jobs?” Finn asks, voice tight so that it doesn’t waver. The lie is on the tip of his tongue—how he already gave notice, or maybe how he doesn’t need to give notice, they owe him so much overtime, or maybe—

Phasma smiles. “You’re welcome to attend the daytime rehearsals as well as the evenings, if you can handle it. And you’ll need it, your footwork was sloppy today.”

Finn nods, doesn’t let it bother him.

This is everything he’s ever wanted. This is the rest of his life.

* 

He signs the contract by candlelight, scrap paper next to him covered with his new signature, over and over and over again, to make sure that he can replicate it perfectly. The fourth signature wavers a little—but the rest of them are okay. Consistent. Normal-looking.

After he signs, he takes out his original ID, compares it to his new ID. If he didn’t know the fake one was fake, he wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

He takes out a pair of scissors, hesitates—and then cuts his original ID in half, and then in quarters, and then down again and again until he’s staring at a bunch of different tiny little pieces of plastic. Takes out a lighter and carefully applies it to the pile of pieces, holding it there until it catches, until the entire pile melts into a shapeless blob of plastic.

Once the entire pile is burnt, Finn carefully douses it in water to cool it off, wraps it in newspaper, then sticks it in a worn-out sock, puts a big rock in afterwards, and ties the sock shut. Picks up his backpack, and leaves the shelter without another look, heading out into the city on foot.

He stops halfway across the bridge to casually lean over the railing. Stares down at the water for a few minutes before taking out the rock. He balances it on the rail, counts to eight—and then nudges it over the edge, and starts walking before he hears the splash.

* 

He’s free.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Warnings:** Fake documentation is purchased in the course of the chapter | It’s implied Finn is living in a shelter and that his past is rough; no details given | Finn has a momentary fear that he’s about to be reported; this is a misconception quickly corrected | Finn is called by another name; the name isn’t mentioned but Finn reacts defensively to it | Finn hints at some knowledge of BDSM; please be aware that this information has come from a library, and not from practical knowledge
> 
>  **End Notes:** The triskelion tattooed on Mitaka's neck is, in fact, a universal (if old school) BDSM symbol. [More info available here](http://emblemproject.sagcs.net/Is.html).
> 
> There is a moodboard for this chapter, available on [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/589473).
> 
> There's a blog entry for the chapter over on [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/3045.html).
> 
> I am on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/heyktula), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).
> 
> Thank you for reading! The Phasma POV chapter will be out in a week's time.


	2. red giant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Armitage's coked-up choreo will be the death of this project.
> 
> Dopheld is getting worse by the day.
> 
> Finn's empathy is going to ruin him.
> 
> Phasma is the only rational one in the entire troupe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Deadsy for the beta work. As always, all remaining errors are my own.
> 
> Chapter notes are at the bottom, as always--there's a fair whack of them compared to last week, so please take heed.

“Once more, from the top,” Phasma calls. “And I don’t want to see any fuckups this time.”

She scans the rows of dancers to confirm they’re ready, then lifts her hand up so Mitaka can see it from the tech booth, and gestures to start the music. Looks down to where her clipboard is balanced on the table—and it’s jittering, text blurring as the clipboard itself shifts.

“Fucking quit it,” she mutters, eyes glued to the stage as she watches Bastian dance, his chest open and arms held out.

“Piss off,” Armitage snarls, his voice a low whisper, knee still bouncing with his heel popped up off the floor. “You should be watching them botch my choreography.”

“Your coked-up choreo is going to be the death of this project,” Phasma says calmly, shifting her gaze to the other dancers, making notes every time something is off. There, the hand positioning is wrong. There, it’s the feet. In the back row, Slip is off by a half-beat again, and there isn’t anywhere else they can move him, so he’ll be pulled entirely if this keeps up.

“I wasn’t high when I wrote it,” he sulks, leaning back in his chair and finally, thankfully, going physically still.

“Oh, those times exist now, do they?” Right there—Slip has fucked up the turn so horrifically he’s actually standing still instead of moving, watching Finn for three whole beats before getting himself back on track. He has no idea what the fuck he’s doing. They’ve already pushed the debut of Starkiller back by months while Armitage re-choreographed massive swaths of it. They don’t have time for anything to be less than perfect.

Then she looks over at Armitage. He’s switched bouncing his knee for picking at his cuticles, and his face is slightly flushed. His eyes are jittery too, dilated pupils darting back and forth, whites of his eyes bloodshot. He looks like shit, and the observation curves the corners of her mouth up in a smile.

“I can’t believe it,” she says, soft enough that it won’t carry past their table. “Between the hookers and the blow, it’s finally caught up with your finances, has it? I bet dear old daddy is impressed.”

Armitage’s eyes flash, and his entire face tightens. He inhales sharply through his nose—and then coughs, swallows, and grimaces. “Let’s not,” he rasps.

“Mmm,” Phasma says. She turns back to the dancers, watches them finish out the section, and then stops the music. It wasn’t a good enough rehearsal to merit a ‘thank you’—but she watches Finn immediately turning to talk to Slip, hand on the other man’s shoulder, and that, at least, gives her some hope that it might not be a complete clusterfuck. “I hope you’re watching this,” she says. “I know you wanted to move Zeroes up instead of Finn, but if you’ll take note, Zeroes is aggressively flirting with Nines, and Finn is checking in with everyone.”

“Zeroes is a better dancer,” Armitage grumbles. “So is Nines, for that matter.”

“No,” Phasma says, “Zeroes and Nines are both willing to get high with you when Dopheld is too busy with his little spreadsheets. That doesn’t count as dancing, and you know it.” She makes a few more notes on her clipboard, then snaps it shut to get everyone’s attention before raising her voice so that it carries across the stage. “That’s it for this session. Break for an hour—light lunch—and we’ll reconvene after to work on the second section of the piece.” She leans up against the table. “You eating, Armitage?”

“None of your business,” he says, making a show of stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. He’s wearing beat-up ballet shoes, and there’s a nasty bruise visible on one of his ankles. “I can manage myself, I don’t need to be shepherded.”

“You have a massive misconception of what shepherds actually do,” she replies. “But I was mostly concerned because the last time I came down to the offices during lunch break, I got an eyeful of Dopheld choking on your cock.”

“Ah,” he says, “and how was that for you?”

“Tedious,” she says.

“Well, that makes two of us,” Armitage says. He cracks his knuckles, and then pulls himself to his feet, gaining himself absolutely no height advantage over her, since he’s in flats and she’s in heels. “His gag reflex is—”

“I literally don't give a fuck,” Phasma says. “You’ll be able to dance this afternoon?”

“I’m always able to dance,” he says, unwinding the scarf from his neck, and tugging at his sweater until it falls down one arm, leaving his shoulder artfully bare. He looks down at the pristine, pale skin there, and frowns. “I don’t suppose Mitaka would be willing to bite me—I’m going to see Darius, and he functions more to my liking if he thinks I’m getting it from other people.”

She snorts. “I don’t believe his health insurance covers inoculations against your particular brand of poison.”

“Funny,” Armitage says dryly.

“You could always ask,” Phasma offers, standing up and tucking her clipboard under her arm. “Maybe blow him for once, that might help the situation out. Use your manners—if you remember what they look like.”

“I remember them perfectly well,” Armitage says, “and I don’t have need of them. Anyway, Mitaka doesn’t approve.”

“That’s at least one moral between the two of you, I’m impressed.”

“Which is more than what you have, so I fail to see the issue.”

“Ma’am,” Finn says from behind Phasma. “A minute of your time?”

Armitage rolls his eyes, opens his mouth—and Phasma glares at him until he shuts it again, turns on his heel and stalks out of the rehearsal hall.

She turns back to Finn, smiles wolfishly at him. “Yes?”

“I’d like access to the studio tonight, nine until ten.”

“Why?”

“Solo rehearsal,” he lies. It’s a beautiful thing, really—his face doesn’t so much as twitch when he does it, even though he’s been doing this brazenly for the last four weeks, and he can’t possibly think she’s that stupid.

“Your solo is near-perfect,” she says, which isn’t a lie at all—but it is uncommon praise, and a flurry of expressions rush across his face before he tightens his jaw and pastes ‘hopeful optimism’ on, covering up everything else.

“Always room for improvement,” he says, and gives her a smile which she supposes would be charming, if she needed it to be.

She raises an eyebrow, keeps her face flat.

He draws back from her a little, then redoubles his efforts. “Ma’am, please—”

“Walk with me,” Phasma says.

He nods.

She makes no effort to slow his stride to account for the six-inch difference in height, but he keeps up with her with a dancer’s lightness, striding beside and ever-so-slightly behind her. She waits until they’re out of the rehearsal hall and heading down to the offices before she flips her clipboard open, holds it out to her right without looking and waits for him to take it. “Today’s notes,” she says.

“…these should be going to Bastian,” Finn says. “I can give—”

“I’m giving them to you,” she says. “Not to him. You have ten seconds.”

“…do you want my technical analysis?”

“Don’t play stupid. You know why I’m asking you. You know what I want. And I know what you want.” She doesn’t stop walking—the answer is so glaringly obvious that if Finn can’t see it and walk at the same time, then she’s been very wrong about her judgement of him over the last year. She’s promoted him once, and she’ll promote him again—but he needs to prove that he deserves it.

She counts the ten seconds off in her head, is at nine when the closed clipboard is pressed back into her waiting hand. Pulls her massive ring of keys from her belt, flips through them by touch until her office door key presents itself, and then unlocks the door and opens it.

The office is empty, lights off. She flicks them on, tosses her clipboard onto her pristine desk.

(The desk across from hers is covered in neat stacks of paper, the edges all aligned, and little coloured flags sticking out all over everything, a language of anxiety that Phasma has no interest in learning.)

“I’m waiting,” she says, sitting in her chair and tipping back on it, balancing on the back two legs with her feet spread wide. She watches the way Finn stands, arms behind his back, feet still, looking at a static point just past her shoulder while he thinks.

“I’m working with him,” Finn says, finally. “I just need more time.”

“Say the words,” Phasma says gently. “I need to know that you’re not in denial about this.”

Finn squeezes his eyes shut.

“I want to trust you,” she continues calmly. “But I need to be sure. I need to know you won’t try to blow smoke up my ass. Name it in words, Finn. Show me you’re worth the things I’ve said about you.”

He opens his eyes, sets his jaw. “Slip tries his hardest, and he does his best, but he has never danced at the level that the rest of Black Sun dances at. I’ve been working with him fairly steadily over the last year trying to bring him up where he needs to be, and he’s shown significant improvement in a number of areas that I can detail for you if that’s what you’re looking for.” He hesitates. “Starkiller has been difficult for him from day one. I know how important Starkiller is to the company. I know how important Starkiller is to Hux. I’ve been lying to you about booking the studio because I’ve been using it to rehearse with him, not for my solo. I appreciate you letting that slide. The extra time has been helping, but I need to up the time that I’m spending with him in order to get him caught up. I’m confident that I can do it by the time that we need to perform. I’m aware that he’s lagging behind. I’ve always known that he’s lagging behind. But I am going to bring him up where he needs to be. I can do this. I’m doing it now.”

Phasma keeps her face flat for as long as she can to see if Finn will crack—and he doesn’t, just stands there, waiting for her judgement. Waiting for her to say whatever she’s going to say, naked honesty just as apparent on his face now as it was the day that she decided she wanted to hire him, and damn the empty resume. She saw potential, then—and she’s seeing the realization of that potential now, hidden under the weakness of his empathy that keeps bubbling to the surface. “Thank you, Finn,” she says, faking warmth in her voice because now is an appropriate time to do so. “That’s what I hoped to hear.” Then she lets her face relax into an honest smile. “And I knew you’d been lying about the studio time—your solo would have improved if you’d been working on it that much.”

Finn grimaces. “Thanks, Captain,” he says. “Appreciate the honesty.”

“Anytime,” Phasma says coolly. “Write Slip’s name in the schedule from now on. Stop lying. Take as much time as you want, but keep in mind—you’ve owned up to what you’re doing here, you’ve reassured me that you can do it, and I need to see results. You can’t get worse—and he has to get better.”

Finn nods. “You won’t regret this. You can trust me.”

“We’ll see,” she says. She sits up, lets the legs of her chair thunk back on the floor. “Go take the remainder of your lunch, and I’ll see you in the studio this afternoon.”

“Ma’am,” he says, nodding his head sharply, and then leaving silently.

She sits there in her office for a few minutes, looking at the clipboard. The thing is—it doesn’t much matter if Slip does or doesn’t shape up. They won’t make it to Starkiller in one piece—not with Armitage on the trajectory he’s on. Something’s going to happen. She’s just not sure what.

Pity.

She swings her legs up onto her desk, brings out her phone. Thumbs the back off the phone, uses the edge of her nail to tug out the SIM card. From there, she flips through her ring of keys until she finds her small flat storage device, opens it up, and removes the SIM card from within. Swaps them, connects to her data plan and starts scrolling through job listings.

She’s interrupted by the scrape of a key at the lock. Sits there and listens to it scratch for a good twenty seconds before the door finally opens.

“It was unlocked the entire time,” she says. “Or are you too high to work a set of keys?”

“Funny,” Dopheld says flatly. “I’m sober.” He looks down at the envelope in his hand, and then the neat piles of paper on his desk, each arranged so that there’s no space for him to put anything else down. He sighs, and then drops the envelope on the floor, leaves it there for a moment, and then bends down to pick it up again. “Painfully, exquisitely sober. This is my third panic attack of the day, and if they continue at this rate, I’m on par for a new personal record.”

“Your hands are shaking,” she notes.

“That’s a symptom,” he says, looking down at them as though he’s never seen them before. The envelope he’s holding is quivering, and the overhead light glints off his neatly manicured nails. “Either it’s from the panic attack, or it’s a new, exciting physical reminder of the insane amount of stress I’m under.”

“Ask Armitage if he’ll blow you, maybe it’ll take the edge off,” she suggests. Keeps scrolling through job listings, but there’s nothing really promising there. Nothing that would be challenging, at least.

Not like this is.

“I don’t need his knees any more fucked up than they already are, thank you,” Dopheld says.

“You can’t think of any alternate positions? I’m sure the internet could provide you with some suggestions.”

“’S not worth the hassle,” Dopheld says, reaching up to adjust his glasses. “The method we have is quick and easy.”

“And tedious, apparently,” Phasma adds.

Dopheld grimaces. “Yes, well, the moment we find a male sex worker with no gag reflex and an affordable price for vicious skullfucking, he’ll cease to be my problem, and until then, he can damn well manage with the fact that I am human.” He sets the envelope down on his desk, bridging two of the paper piles, then comes around and sits on the edge of Phasma’s desk.

“By all means,” she says, “put your feet up.”

He takes her seriously, pulls his feet into his chest, and leans back against the wall. “Hux isn’t here.”

“Nope.”

“He’s fucking around with Darius again, isn’t he.”

“Yup,” Phasma confirms.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dopheld curses. “I have done everything in my goddamn power to get that to stop happening, and that fucking— _fuck_. It’ll tank the entire company if he keeps this up.”

“Darius gagging over Armitage isn’t a company problem,” Phasma notes.

“Not yet,” Dopheld says darkly. “but it will be. I’ve met her, did you know? Darius’ wife.”

“So?”

“I like her,” Dopheld says mournfully. “I don’t know what she’s doing with him.”

Phasma raises her eyebrow. “Really?”

“She’s _nice_ ,” Dopheld insists.

“Nice isn’t a personality characteristic,” Phasma points out. “It’s just something that people say when they’re describing someone so bland that there’s nothing else _to_ say.”

“You’re a sociopath,” Dopheld says mildly.

She grins, scrolls through another series of job listings, flagging the ones she likes. “Sure,” she says. “If it makes you feel better.”

“You and Hux both.”

“Sure,” she agrees, “if it makes you feel better.”

“Don’t you even care what’s in the envelope?” Dopheld whines.

Phasma shrugs one shoulder, powers her phone down, and swaps the SIM cards again, powering the phone back up with the company SIM. “Not particularly, but I’m sure you’ll tell me all about it, so go ahead.” She glances at her smartwatch. They have time for the envelope, and probably the tail end of Dopheld’s meltdown besides, as long as he’s efficient about it.

“A quote,” Dopheld says. “Specifically, the quote for the costumes for Starkiller. I nearly passed out when I got them.”

“How much?” she asks.

Dopheld sighs, slides off her desk, and reaches for the envelope. His hands are shaking badly enough that he knocks one of the piles over as he reaches for the envelope, watches in horror as it falls over in a graceful _swoosh_ , cascading loose paper onto the floor.

He stares at the avalanche, and then at the envelope he’s holding in his hand. “ _Fuck_ ,” he says, heartfelt.

“Here,” Phasma says, swinging her feet to the floor, and reaching across her desk. “At least give me the envelope while you’re cleaning that mess up.”

Dopheld hands it over, kneels on the floor, and starts sorting through the mess.

Phasma opens the envelope, tugs the stapled quote out. Even the paper is flashy— _Calrissian Couture_ emblazoned in gold leaf across the top of the heavy, off-white stationary. She skims the letter itself, which is a whole bunch of administrative bullshit and ridiculous flattery. She flips the page, skims her eyes over the concept drawings—which, admittedly, look really fucking good, and would look extremely sharp on the dancers—and then keeps flipping until she reaches the actual quote.

She’s not a person who typically has feelings—so the odd weightless feeling in her stomach catches her by surprise, and she revels in it for a moment as she stares at a number that they will literally never be able to recoup.

And that’s just for the costumes.

“You see what I mean,” Dopheld mutters from the floor. “And don’t pretend that didn’t shock you, I heard your breath catch from here.”

“So,” she says, “what’s your plan?’

Dopheld grimaces. “I don’t have one. It doesn’t matter who I show this to, Hux or Darius—Hux wants it, and if Hux wants it, Darius will give it to him, and if Darius gives it to him, then that’s it for the project before we’re even out the door. Your hard work gone, my hard work gone, we might as well all pack it up and go at that point. We could sell out every night of the run, domestic and international both, and extend them for a week besides, and we’d still be underwater.”

“Is there a backup for costuming?”

“Yeah,” Dopheld says. “I already have quotes from a couple other designers. Nothing that good—but multiple options that are nearly as good, at a fraction of the price. It’s just that once Hux realizes that quote exists, nothing else is going to work.”

“Mmm,” Phasma says. She sets the papers down on her desk, drums the pads of her fingers against the quote. “I can handle this for you.”

“…what’s your price?” Dopheld asks.

“Simple,” she says.

“It never is, but tell me.”

“You watch me handle it. That’s all.”

“…I don’t need to look like I agree with you?” Dopheld asks hesitantly.

“For all I care,” Phasma says, “you can curse my name.”

“And you’ll make it go away?”

“I’ll make it go away,” she says, already tapping the number off the header into her phone. “Are you in?”

“I’m in,” Dopheld says. “It can’t possibly be worse than…”

“Good afternoon,” Phasma says brightly into the phone the moment someone picks up. “To whom am I speaking?”

“This is Jeanine,” the woman on the other end of the line says. “How may I help you?”

“This is in referral to a recent inquiry from Black Sun about costuming for our upcoming show.”

“Ah, yes, I can redirect you to Lovey, one moment—”

“No need,” Phasma says blithely. “I’m just passing along a message from Armitage Hux, who says, and I quote—apologies for the language, it isn’t mine—that this is the worst excuse for a costume proposal he’s ever seen in his life, and if he wanted his dancers to look like cheap sluts, he would have contacted someone from Ryloth to design for them.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. Phasma winks at Dopheld, who has gone completely white, and continues. “He goes on to say that he wouldn’t buy the costumes for a fraction of the price, and if Lando has any sense in his head, he’d retire now, because he’s clearly three quarters of the way past the point he should have.” She pauses, flips pages loudly enough for it to be audible on the other end of the line. “He’s also left—oh, oh dear, I’m sorry, I’m not going to repeat the rest of this. It must be directed at the designer, what did you say her name was? El-something?”

“I, er…”

“Oh, goodness,” Phasma says casually, staring at a blank piece of paper. “That’s awful language, I couldn’t possibly repeat that.”

“We’ll have to blacklist you,” the woman on the other end of the line says, finally. “That’s not—this isn’t the kind of thing I have to listen to in the workplace.”

“Of course not,” Phasma agrees. “Shall I spell his name out for you? A-R-M-I-T-A-G-E and then the last name is H-U-X. Have a nice day.” She ends the call without another thought, looks at Dopheld. He’s white as a sheet, and starting to go green around the edges.

“I can’t…Phasma, you can’t…”

“I’m not done yet,” she says. She reaches under her desk and pulls out her shredder, sticks it beside her desk where Dopheld can see it, and then, before he has a chance to object, she flips it on with one hand, and puts the documentation from _Calrissian Couture_ right into the slot with the other.

The shredder grinds away at the thick paper for a moment before finally getting the bulk of it down, and when it finally stops shredding, the room is so quiet that she can almost hear Dopheld’s pulse rabbiting away in his neck.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he says quietly.

“Not in here, you won’t be,” Phasma says. She pulls her shredder back, nudges it under her desk with her foot, stands up, and cracks her knuckles. “Now I’m done,” she adds, helpfully. “And they’re not likely to call back in the future, or speak to Armitage if he calls to follow up. Come on, rehearsal time.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t just go full out on the fictitious rant against the designer,” Dopheld gripes, standing up and brushing off his knees.

“You fucking kidding me?” Phasma asks. “Lovey is a brilliant designer, and I own some of her clothing from before she was with Calrissian. She’s a queer woman working in fashion. The last thing she needs is to think that there’s yet another male dancer that hates her guts just for existing.” She waits for Dopheld to leave the room, and then turns back, locks it up tight and clips her key ring back onto her belt. “Anyway,” she says, “the implication of what I _could_ have said is far worse than anything that I’d actually say. Less is more, Dopheld.”

*

“You didn’t tell me Hux was injured,” Darius says accusingly, finger perilously close to actually poking Phasma in the chest.

She contemplates the merits of bending down and biting the offending digit off, right at the knuckle, and spitting it back onto the floor at his feet. Settles, instead, for rising up out of her chair to her full height, and widening her stance, short dress be damned. “I didn’t what?”

“It’s just,” he says, taking a step back. “He’s _my_ dancer, and he’s obviously injured.”

Phasma glances over her shoulder to the stage. Armitage is moving easily enough—he’s deep in conversation with Bastian and Nines, probably going over—oh, no, there. She watches him gesture with his left hand instead of his right, clocks how he’s holding his right hand cradled into his ribs, fingertips tapping on the other side of his waist. Shoulder, probably, or his ribs, or both.

“I’ll see to it,” she says. “You understand the schedule we’re under for Starkiller.”

“Of course I understand,” Darius blusters. “Hux and I made that schedule ourselves, planned it explicitly, we worked late hours, we—”

“Good,” she says smoothly. “I’ll check in with Armitage and—”

“He prefers Hux,” Darius says.

Phasma raises her eyebrow and waits, absolutely silently, until Darius quails and backs down, physically takes a step away from her.

“Don’t forget who pays you,” he says, finally. “I’m watching you, and I have ears everywhere.”

“Of course,” Phasma says. “Dopheld asked for your input on the lighting,” she adds, just to get Darius the fuck out of her hair. She waits until he rolls his eyes, and heads up to the tech booth before taking out her phone to text Dopheld.

_Phasma: Sent Darius up._

_Phasma: Said u had qs re lighting._

The reply comes in almost immediately.

_Dopheld: Look up._

Phasma turns around, looks up to the tech booth.

Dopheld is standing up in the booth, glaring at her over his glasses. Both his middle fingers are extended.

She grins at him, goes back to her phone.

_Phasma: so professional._

_Dopheld: Seriously, though, fuck you very much._

_Dopheld: I swear I can hear his breathing change every time Hux so much as moves._

_Phasma: And if you’re grossed out by that, imagine how I feel._

She sets her phone back down on the table, sits down in her chair. “Alright,” she calls up to the stage. “Armitage, are you dancing this round, or are you putting Nines in for you?”

She’d interpret the expression that briefly flits across Armitage’s face as relief, if she thought the bastard had any capability of showing positive emotion. Instead, she just files it mentally under _expressions of pain comma Armitage_ , and is not at all surprised when he gestures sharply with his good hand, and then jumps lightly down off the stage and comes to join her behind the table.

“Start them,” he mutters under his breath.

“When I feel like it,” she says. She takes a moment to find joy in the slightly laboured way he’s breathing, and the way he shifts around in his seat until he finds something that’s comfortable. When she glances over, it’s quite clear from the way he’s sitting that he’s in the process of fucking up one of his hips as well. She lets her mouth curl up into a smile.

“I hate it when you do that,” Armitage complains.

“Do what?”

“Smile.”

“Only anticipating what I’ll get to do to you later,” Phasma says softly, watching the dancers run through their piece, Nines standing in for Armitage in the spotlight. “Unless, that is, you’ve decided to go to Canady.”

Armitage whispers a string of profanities. “Are you free tonight?”

“Only if you aren’t coked-up.” Phasma checks the time on her stopwatch, marks it down on the paper along with a series of notes on stage right’s choreo, which has gone completely to shit. “I won’t do it for you if are.”

“I won’t be,” he says.

* 

Armitage isn’t coked up, but he is drunk when he finally shows up in the Black Sun storage room, absolutely reeking of rum, and with a half-empty handle of it hanging loosely in his good hand. “Alright,” he slurs, weaving as he enters. “Do your worst, Captain.”

Phasma reaches over and snags the rum from his hand, sloshes it around, and then pours a shot of it into her mouth without touching her lips to the bottle. It burns going down, but starts warming her chest almost immediately. “On the table,” she says, setting the rum down on a storage crate.

Armitage strips off his shirt, the movement sloppy, tosses it onto the floor.

She peers at his eyes, checks his pupils, watches him struggle to stay focused. “Should have showed up sober,” she says. “You’re more likely to cry this way.”

“Fuck it,” he says, gesturing at his body with his good hand before sitting on the edge of the portable massage table. “Right shoulder,” he says. “Ribs too.”

“Dislocated again?” she asks, taking another swig of rum.

He shakes his head. “Doesn’t feel like it. Feels torn.”

Phasma reaches into the pocket of her sweatpants, pulls out a couple rolls of kinesiology tape. “Stay sitting just like that,” she says. She sets the rolls of tape down on the massage table, takes a moment to sanitize her hands, and then runs her fingertips lightly down Armitage’s spine, checking the alignment, before shifting one hand to either side to start checking his ribs. “Ah,” she says. “You’re out pretty significantly on this side.”

“Said as much,” he slurs.

She moves her hand up to his shoulderblade, prods around and listens to the way his breathing changes.

“This is going to hurt,” she warns. “And Darius will have your head for not going to Canady.”

“Not going to that fucker,” Armitage says. “He’ll pull me from the piece. I can’t be pulled from _Starkiller_ , it’s _mine_.”

“Suit yourself,” Phasma says. She cracks her knuckles, and then puts her hands to his shoulderblade and starts to manipulate it back into place.

He doesn’t cry, but he does scream about halfway through.

* 

“So,” Phasma says casually. “How are you feeling, Finn?”

Finn’s gaze goes immediately wary, but to his credit, he doesn’t stop stretching, just leans a little further into the bar. “Fine, thanks, Captain.”

“I’ve noticed your work with Slip,” she says. “It’s paying off.”

He grins, tries to hide it by turning his face further to the floor. “Thanks, Captain. Having the extra studio time is making a big difference.”

“His future with the company is still up for questioning,” she says, “obviously.”

“…right,” Finn says. “I mean, I have no problem continuing to work with him after _Starkiller_ is done—I mean, after the international tour and everything.”

“And at what point,” Phasma asks, “does that begin to interfere with your own work?”

“No point,” Finn says confidently.

“Don’t get cocky,” she says. “I’ll cut both of you if I need to—you need to sit with that, and consider how badly you want to dance with Black Sun—and how badly you want to spend the rest of your career mentoring someone who will never be half the dancer that you are.”

“…understood,” Finn says.

“You’re over-rotating,” she adds as she walks away. “Watch it.”

* 

“Well,” Phasma says. “Three weeks until we open, and look who’s dragging themselves in looking like a pile of shit.”

Dopheld runs his hand back through his hair, grimaces, wipes it on his pant leg. “Last time I take sleeping pills,” he says. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.” He puts his hand on his chest, winces. “Christ, these uppers are hell on my heart.”

“Meth?”

“Jesus fuck, Phasma, Adderall.” He takes a deep drink from the cup of cold coffee sitting on his desk, grimaces. “Do you think I’ll still get paid post-mortem if I don’t survive this show?”

“Yes,” she says, “but it’ll go right to me.”

He looks at her, face uncertain for a moment before the realization kicks in. “Oh, you…oh,” he says, without any real heat—but, then, it wouldn’t matter if there was heat, because it is what it is, and he’ll just have to deal with it. “You took out insurance policies on us in your name.”

“I did,” she agrees. She looks back to her computer, rewinds the rehearsal footage, and taps it down to half-speed, starts watching it again. “You may want to try meth,” she adds. “I hear it does wonders for your lifespan.”

“God,” he says, coming around the desk and pulling up a chair next to her. “How are you still chipper about this?”

“Don’t mistake acceptance for optimism,” she says mildly. “This entire thing is a tire fire, but it amuses me for the time being, so here I am, and here I’ll stay, until it stops being funny.”

“That’s a little harsh.”

There’s a tap at their office door.

“Come in,” they call out in unison.

Dopheld cringes. “Sorry,” he says, under his breath.

“I don’t give a shit,” Phasma says, pausing the video again and looking up at the door.

It’s Bastian. He has his coat on, and an envelope in his hand.

“Rehearsal is on the main stage today,” Dopheld says.

She’s already clocked the bag over his shoulder, the relative thickness of the letter he’s holding.

She knows what this is.

She knows what it looks like when people head for the lifeboats.

“I’m done,” Bastian says.

Dopheld tilts his head. “For the day? Canady will be in later today if you’ve injured—”

“No,” Bastian says. “I’m finished with Black Sun. I’ve accepted another position.”

Silence.

“You’re under contract,” Dopheld says. “And you’re not due to expire until—”

“I quit,” Bastian says. He hasn’t done anything with the envelope yet, but Phasma has a suspicion as to what’s in there.

Bastian is too smart not to have reassurance he’ll get what he wants.

“That’s not how your contract works,” Dopheld says, sounding weary and worn out. “I’ll get your copy so that you can see.” He makes a move to stand up, but Phasma steps on his foot to pin him into place. He makes a brief attempt to get his foot out from under hers, but then settles back into his chair, scowling and red-faced.

“Are there other copies of that?”’ Phasma asks, gesturing at the envelope he’s holding in his hand.

“At home,” he says.

Phasma leans back. The disinterest she’s projecting isn’t feigned—her own behaviour has been impeccable, and there’s nothing that any of them can stick to her, no matter how fast or far Black Sun sinks. “Leave that copy here, burn your remaining copies, and I’ll pay out all your overtime.”

“And if I don’t?” he asks.

“It’s not contractually owed to you,” Dopheld says, finally regaining his metaphorical footing. “It’s easy enough to wipe it off the computer system.”

Bastian considers a moment. “Accepted,” he says. He tosses the letter, lets it land heavily on Phasma’s desk, slide toward her.

“None of us will be providing a reference,” Phasma adds, turning away from the envelope and starting the video up again. “If your new job doesn’t work out.”

“I expected as much,” he says.

There is silence, for a moment, before the door shuts behind him.

Phasma lifts her foot from on top of Dopheld’s, turns the audio on the video up a bit to cover him getting control of himself.

After a moment, he offers, “Well, fuck.”

She shrugs. “It was bound to happen. It doesn’t hurt me any.” She glances side-long at him.

Dopheld is bright red, staring at the envelope as though it’s a snake about to bite.

“Why don’t you look,” Phasma offers. “I’m sure it’s delightful blackmail material.”

“I don’t need to look,” he says. Clears his throat. “Armitage and I are…probably ninety percent of the reason he’s pissed.”

“Look at that,” she says. “Perspective.” She taps the screen with her pen. “Speaking of Armitage—you’ll have to talk to him about the choreography for this section. None of the dancers are physically quick enough to do it.”

“Finn is doing it,” Mitaka says.

“Finn,” Phasma says, “is cheating. Look.” She slows the footage down to quarter-speed, even though what he’s doing is visible to her at half. “Right there. He’s not transferring his weight in the pas de bourrée, he’s just sliding his foot in and out to make it look like he’s doing it.”

Dopheld squints.

Phasma wordlessly scrolls the video back, loops it for him again.

After the third time, he whistles under his breath. “The _fuck_ ,” he says.

“He’s good,” Phasma says. She leans back in her chair, spins her pen in her hand. “I’d have taken drastic measures if it were Finn quitting. You should look at your magic spreadsheets again, find a bonus for him.” She picks up the envelope from Bastian, tucks it into her bag for later. “I like working here,” she adds.

“Please don’t threaten to leave.”

“It won’t be a threat,” Phasma says. She pats Dopheld on the shoulder. “I have faith in your spreadsheets. You can find something for my best dancer. I won’t even make you find something for me. Just find something for him, and we can discuss my compensation once we get past Starkiller.”

Dopheld sighs, puts his head in his hands.

“I’ll be on the mainstage when you’re done crying,” she says. “See you up there.”

“I hate you,” he mutters.

She shrugs. It doesn’t matter whether he does or doesn’t.

It is what it is.

*

Canady has the sense to step smartly out of the way when she sees him in the hall.

“Have you spoken to Hux lately?” he asks.

She keeps walking, hears the scuffle of his feet as he rushes to catch up to her.

“He has tape on his shoulder,” Canady says, “and I haven’t seen him.”

Phasma spares him a glance, is pleased to see that his face is a bit red. She speeds up her pace ever so slightly.

“I’m contracted to Black Sun,” Canady sputters, “and I am the _only one_ authorized to do medical treatments or refer dancers to appropriate specialists—”

“Sounds like,” Phasma says, “you’ll need to speak with Darius if you’re concerned about the treatment that his dancers are getting.” She grins at him, shows her teeth. “Of course, since you’re the only one authorized to treat Black Sun dancers, I’d be cautious raising any concerns about said treatment.”

He sets his jaw.

“Send Brendol my regards,” Phasma says. “I know he does love to hear from me.”

*

“Finn,” she calls out.

Finn’s eyes go immediately to her.

“Stay here, we need to speak.”

He nods sharply, turns back to his on-stage discussion with the other dancers. Phasma turns around, looks up at the tech booth to gesture to Mitaka that they’re done—but she can’t even see him up there, so he’s either passed out from stress, or has given up already and is pacing around upstairs.

Something buzzes on the table. Phasma picks up the cell without thinking about it, answers it.

“This is Phasma.”

A pause, for a moment, on the other end of the line. “I was hoping,” an old man says, after a moment, “that I might speak with one…Armitage Hux.”

“Mmm,” Phasma says. She lifts her ear away from the phone a moment, looks at the screen—lovely. It’s Armitage’s. She scowls, wipes her hand on her pants. “He’s not available at the moment,” she continues, scanning the stage until she finds him—ah, there he is. He’s talking to Darius, sitting down on the floor with his legs spread. One of his hands is wrapped around the bottom of his foot and the other is massaging his opposite hip.

Darius, the fucking pervert, is staring at Hux’s dance belt, which is in no way indicative of anything that’s actually going on there.

Phasma huffs out a breath.

“When will he be available?” the dusty voice asks on the other end of the line. “Armitage Hux, that is.”

“He’ll have to call you back,” Phasma says, layering false politeness over her words. “Who shall I say is asking after him?”

“Snoke,” the dry voice says. “He’ll know who I am.” A deliberate pause. “Tell him,” the voice continues, “that I don’t believe any of the rather…ugly rumours I’ve heard.”

“Mmm,” Phasma says disinterestedly. “I’ll pass that along.” She terminates the call with the pad of her pinky, sets the phone on the edge of the table and pours hand sanitizer into her palms before briskly rubbing them together. She debates whether or not to say anything—but when she looks back up at the stage, Darius is running his hand back through his hair, his wedding ring is glinting in the stage lights, he’s still staring at Armitage’s crotch, and she remembers exactly how stricken Dopheld had looked in her office. “Armitage,” she calls out.

Armitage turns his head. “Yeah?”

“Phone call for you,” Phasma says. She weighs her options a moment, and then settles on the most damning one. “It was a man. He said you’d know who it was.”

He cocks his head, looks confused a moment.

Darius crouches down next to him, puts his hand on Armitage’s bicep possessively.

Phasma rolls her eyes. She’ll just let that one devolve. She picks up her own phone, carefully notes the time and date of the call. She’ll cross-reference it with Dopheld later, make sure that they’re keeping an eye on this.

(It’s one thing the three of them agree on—none of them are interested in being recruited by Snoke.)

“Hey,” Finn says softly. “Sorry it took so long.”

She looks up from her phone, levels her gaze at him coolly.

He doesn’t flinch, just makes eye contact and waits.

Phasma smiles in spite of herself. “You did well today,” she says. “I need you to take that compliment with the spirit in which I’m offering it to you.”

Finn tilts his head, steps closer. “What’s going on?” he asks in an undertone.

“Walk with me,” she says.

He nods, shoulders his bag, and follows after her. He doesn’t say anything or initiate any conversations, which she appreciates, and they walk back to her office in silence. When they get there, she unlocks the door, invites him in. Sits down behind her desk, and swings her feet up onto the surface. He stands in front of her desk, back straight and posture wary.

“What are your plans for your future?” she asks.

“Um,” Finn says. “Dancing.”

“Your long-term future.”

“Dancing,” he repeats.

“What’s your post-dancing plan?”

He narrows his eyes. “Are you asking me if I have an exit strategy?”

There’s no sense in evading the point. “Yes.”

He wrinkles his nose, thinks about it a moment. “Do _you_ have an exit strategy?”

She thinks of cash tucked away in various places, the myriad number of bank accounts she owns. The industry contacts, the multiple SIM cards on her phone, all of the various ways in which she can escape at any point in time—and then, she thinks of the adrenaline rush that she gets from working with dancers as brilliant as Finn, the things they can achieve when they’re willing to just shut the fuck up and listen to her.

(She thinks of the exact point in time when Armitage _stopped_ , and more’s the pity, because he would be really good if he calmed the fuck down, let Phasma and Dopheld run things like they used to, just focused on dance. Like he did before he got the idea for Starkiller stuck in his teeth. Before he got _obsessed_.)

Phasma smiles, lets it split her face. “Don’t insult my intelligence,” she says, “and I won’t insult yours. Get your exit strategy together. I’m telling you this as a professional courtesy.”

“I’m good, thanks,” Finn says stubbornly. “This is all I’ve ever wanted to do, you’re the best person to train with, and Hux is the best dancer in the discipline.”

Phasma snorts. “Well, two of those things are correct.”

“Three of those things are correct,” Finn insists.

“Keep telling yourself that,” she says, leaning back in her chair and casually tugging open her bottom drawer. “But think about that exit strategy, and let me know what it is when you find it. Dismissed.”

*

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t,” Dopheld mutters. He reaches the end of her kitchen, turns around, hands tugging at his hair. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”

“Well,” Phasma says, swirling her whiskey in her glass. “You’re going to have to.”

“You have the empathy of a stick,” Dopheld snarls. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face is blotchy, and he stares at her for a while before exhaling heavily, and starting to pace again.

“I let you come to my apartment to decompress, didn’t I?”

“No,” Dopheld says, “you answered the buzzer when I leaned on it, because I was panicking, and I didn’t know where else to go. I can’t believe he took away my access to the fucking _budgets_ , who the fuck is going to look after things? Who’s going to pay attention to the money?”

“I could have ignored it,” she offers.

“You can’t ignore the money, none of us can ignore the money, this is a fucking tight operation to begin with because—”

“The buzzer.”

“Aaaaahhhhh,” he says softly, leaning back against her fridge. “I just. I. It’s. My budgets. All the numbers. Darius doesn’t know where any of it goes. He doesn’t know what any of it does, he doesn’t—and I haven’t even told Hux yet, I haven’t—”

“It’s just the books. It’s not like it matters,” she says, voice cutting through his rising panic. “Starkiller won’t happen,” she adds, softly.

He visibly twitches. “Please don’t say that,” he whines. “We’ve done this exclusively for months. Six months. Almost seven months. We don’t have any other repertoire. Everything has been sunk into this. We had final costume fittings today. We start dress rehearsals on Sunday. I don’t remember the last time I worked for less than fourteen hours, or slept for more than four.”

She takes a sip. It’s not the good scotch—this stuff has more of a bite to it than what she generally likes, but, then, her financial future isn’t as secure as she wants it to be right now either, so the six month salary bottles it is. “That still leaves six hours in your day, what on earth are you doing with yourself.”

Dopheld sighs. “Crying, mostly,” he admits. “It’s not as effective a stress relief as what I’d hoped. Diminishing returns, and all.”

“I thought that _X_ app was supposed to be all the stress relief you needed,” she notes. “That’s certainly how you were explaining it to me about six months ago.”

“I’m surprised you even kept listening past the first mention of sex,” Dopheld says.

“You never know,” she says. “I like to keep my options open, and untapped.”

“Anyway, it’s a fucking nightmare,” Dopheld says. “My schedule is too irregular to book anyone. I comment on the occasional picture. That’s it.”

“I thought you and Armitage were booking together.”

“Ha,” Dopheld says flatly. “You try booking sex workers with someone that repressed. I’m shocked he was ever able to get off with me at all.”

Phasma snorts, takes another drink.

“I booked him everything he wanted,” Dopheld continues, “and he just…flatlined.”

“You should take note of that,” Phasma remarks. “I know you’ve been in his back pocket from day one, and you let him walk all over you, trusting that he won’t break anything—but if he can’t handle a little thing like sex, how do you think it’s going to go when his career implodes?”

Dopheld sniffs, pulls a tissue from his pocket, and blows his nose. “He won’t,” he says. “He wouldn’t. When push comes to shove, he’ll have my back.” He swallows, and finally picks up the drink she made for him when he got here, takes a long drink of it, and then sets it back down carefully on her kitchen floor. “Anyway, sex isn’t a little thing to most of us.”

“It is for me,” she says coolly. Then she glances over at him—sees a small man with a blotchy face, leaning against her fridge looking absolutely fucking miserable, and she feels a stab of something that almost resembles pity.

“Like,” he says, reaching for the drink again, and cradling it in his hands like it’s the only thing keeping him steady right now. “You don’t honestly believe that it’s not going to go, do you? I mean, it has to go. Starkiller has to work, it absolutely has to. This is just—this is just a bump in the road. It’ll be a rough transition to dress rehearsals, but the opening night will go fine, and the run will go smoothly, and we’ve got that international tour besides, and maybe…maybe we won’t make quite the amount of money that Darius seems to think we’re going to make, but it’ll be alright, won’t it? We won’t go under?”

Phasma blinks—and then looks at him more closely. Notices the small details, this time. The chipped edges of his manicure where he’s been biting his nails. The place on his right side where his shirt is untucked. The bags under his eyes, which are nearly enough to rival Armitage’s. The way his hands are shaking and his voice cracks when she speaks, and she realizes something.

Dopheld Mitaka is very, very close to having a nervous breakdown. And if he has one—all of this comes to her.

(She doesn’t want _any_ of this goddamn mess.)

And then, because every problem has a solution, and the simplest solution is usually the best—Phasma does something that she absolutely never does.

She grins, wide enough to show her teeth, the gesture plastic and false—and then she comforts him. “It’ll be fine, Dopheld,” she lies. “Just relax.”

She should feel awful for way the tension drains out of his body, and worse for the way that he actually comes over and clasps her upper arm for a moment.

She doesn’t. It’s what needed to be done, nothing more, and nothing less.

“That’s exactly what I needed to hear,” he says, voice absolutely dripping with relief. “Thanks, Phasma.”

That, though.

That, she actually feels a little bit bad about.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Warnings:** casual references to off-screen cocaine use | implication that Hux has spent most of his disposable income on drugs and sex workers; this may or may not be factual | Phasma mentions walking in on Hux/Mitaka once and her desire to avoid that in future; Hux notes the encounter was ‘tedious’ and is about to continue the conversation when Phasma cuts him off | Hux is absolutely abusing the attachment that Darius has to him in a really unethical way | Phasma is deliberately isolating Finn from the other dancers | Mitaka has a panic attack; he manages it alright, but he’s in under a lot of stress re: company finances | brief reference to skullfucking in the context of the difficulty of finding a sex worker willing to do it; it’s implied Dopheld is blowing Hux because they can’t hire anyone that would suit Hux’s needs better | Mitaka assumes Darius is cheating on his wife; Phasma doesn’t say anything either in agreement or disagreement | casual and less-than-accurate use of the word ‘sociopath’ re: discussions of both Hux and Phasma | Phasma seems to think that Mitaka’s panic attack can occur within a specific time period and then be wrapped up; wtf | Phasma implies, falsely, that Hux has said horrible things about both the costuming company and a woman fashion designer; the phrase ‘cheap sluts’ is used re: how their dancers would look; no additional slurs used, but the implications are unpleasant and Phasma professes admiration for the woman’s work privately immediately afterwards | Phasma briefly contemplates biting off Darius’ finger when he gets up in her face | a conversation Hux and Phasma have could be interpreted as sexual in nature; be assured that it is definitely not as Hux is very gay, and Phasma is on the ace spectrum | unlicensed physiotherapy is performed by Phasma on Hux; it’s not described in detail but it’s implied to be painful | Mitaka is casually using Adderall to counteract sleeping pills | Phasma physically prevents Mitaka from moving by stepping on his foot | Mitaka threatens to wipe out a dancer’s overtime | more financial anxiety re: the company; Phasma is unaffected by this
> 
> **End Notes:** Good lord, y'all. No wonder Bastian wanted out of this shitshow.
> 
> There is a moodboard for this chapter, available on [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/posts/604333).
> 
> There's a blog entry for the chapter over on [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/3403.html).
> 
> I am on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/heyktula), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/ktula).
> 
> Thank you for reading! The Mitaka POV chapter (final chapter!) will be out in a week's time.


	3. supernova

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux looks every inch the professional Mitaka has always known he could be.
> 
> It’s not just the realization of potential that Phasma feels is long gone, it’s Mitaka knowing that he was right, that Hux has always been more than capable of being exactly this, exactly as he is right now—beautiful and brilliant and everything they need to pull Black Sun out of the red and into the black. 
> 
> Everything they need to make their careers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Deadsy for the beta work. As always, all remaining errors are my own.
> 
> Chapter notes are at the bottom, as always--there's a fair whack of them this week too, because *gestures*.

Mitaka is as nervous as fuck. The caffeine isn’t helping. The lack of sleep isn’t helping.

The cigarette he’s inhaling in the alley behind the tv studio, though. That’s helping a little bit.

He closes his eyes, snaps them open immediately. Every time he shuts his eyes, he sees numbers. The numbers are red, and insurmountably large. He keeps having nightmares about blank spreadsheets, with damning totals and no way to determine how the totals were arrived at.

His phone buzzes in his back pocket, and he pulls it out, dreading whatever it’s—

—oh, it’s Kaplan.

_Kaplan: Gangbang on Sunday? Four pm, location to be determined._

_Kaplan: You’ll like the bangee. Six feet tall, broad, wears a mask. See attached._

_[Kaplan has sent a file.]_

Mitaka’s finger hovers over the attachment before he sighs, exhaling smoke through his nostrils. He ignores the attachment, opens up his calendar.

The calendar is a nightmare. Everything overlaps with everything else, and it’s still a fucking mess even after he de-selects Hux’s calendar.

_LittleDoe: My regret is inexpressible in words. I don’t have any availability this weekend._

_Kaplan: You didn’t even open the photo._

Mitaka clicks the image, sighs. The leather mask the sex worker is wearing obscures his entire face, but the rest of his body is gloriously naked, massive hands cupped over his genitals. The man’s musculature is…impressive.

_LittleDoe: He’s perfect._

_Kaplan: I bet even your repressed redhead would like him._

_LittleDoe: Be that as it may, we’re both working._

_LittleDoe: Nor is he mine._

_Kaplan: Let me know if you change your mind. The bangee is offering us a good deal on this, you’d be a fool not to take it._

_Kaplan: You know how to contact me._

Mitaka exhales, takes another drag off his cigarette. Briefly contemplates just ditching absolutely everything and going to the gangbang anyways, it’s just—there’s no way. There’s absolutely no way.

He checks his watch. Hux’s interview is starting soon. He should be back inside.

He thumbs open the app again, saves the picture, and accesses the bangee’s profile, expecting a detailed list of kinks, notes about availability, an intro message. Instead, he gets five words.

_Hardcore masochist._

_Mask not optional._

He flips over to text messaging.

_Mitaka: I regret many of my life choices that have led me to this point._

Waits in the alley for another five minutes while his cigarette burns down between his fingers, but Phasma doesn’t respond.

In the end, he sighs again, pockets his phone, and goes back inside the tv studio.

It’s just an interview.

How bad could it be?

* 

“—and whatever you do,” Mitaka says softly, “do not talk about the opening night numbers.” He holds out Hux’s jacket for him to slip his arm into the sleeve, and then reaches up to Hux’s collar, carefully peels back the KT tape that extends out onto his neck, folds it back on itself and tucks it underneath Hux’s white dress shirt.

“You’re catastrophizing again,” Hux says, mildly enough that Mitaka immediately leans over and looks at his pupils.

(Slightly dilated, but hopefully not enough to be noticeable.)

“Again,” Mitaka says, keeping his voice quiet. “Do not talk about the presale numbers. Tell them you’re too much of a prima donna to pay attention to little things like statistics.”

Hux snorts, looks at himself in the mirror. Brings up his hand and presses his hair back into place, even though it’s already perfect. Touches his knuckle under his nose, even though there’s no hint of residue. He looks stunningly elegant like this, hair slicked back, expensive suit jacket perfectly tailored to his frame, shoes polished and shiny. He looks every inch the professional Mitaka has always known he could be, and there’s a tiny bit in the back of Mitaka’s brain that is overjoyed at this—it’s not just the realization of potential that Phasma feels is long gone, it’s knowing that he was _right_ , that Hux has always been more than capable of being exactly this, exactly as he is right now—beautiful and brilliant and everything they need to pull Black Sun out of the red and into the black. Everything they need to make their careers.

(It’s been worth it. Starkiller is going to be worth it. Even if it puts the entire company into debt, Hux will make this work for them—)

Mitaka leans in, tugs at Hux’s collar, and then steps back out of his personal space again. “Please show some humility,” he says, continuing through his mental list of reminders, just in case. “Credit the other dancers. Talk about how hard they’ve been working. We’re all in this as a company, and we’ll succeed as a company.” He hesitates, leans in again, carefully slides his fingers around the back of Hux’s neck, rubs at the tight muscles with his thumb.

“Lovely pep talk,” Hux says calmly—and there, that time, Mitaka is close enough to smell his breath. If he’s been drinking, it’s not enough that Mitaka can detect it.

“Thank you, Hux.”

“It’s a phenomenal project,” Hux continues, eyes glittering with barely suppressed enthusiasm. “People will understand that. They just need to understand the concept behind—”

“No, wait,” Mitaka says, struggling to keep his voice at a low murmur. “Don’t start talking about that either, it’s not accessible, you need to not—”

“—I think I know how to interview, Dopheld.”

“I’m trying to tell you,” Mitaka says, and then he bites back the next few sentences that pass through his mind, settles on, “—just stick to the basics, please, the audience is not functioning on the same level of dance knowledge as you and I—”

“Well, then, that’s not our audience, is it,” Hux says, tilting his head from side to the side and watching his reflection in the mirror. “Our audience will understand it.”

“People don’t need to understand it,” Thanisson interjects from the door. “They just need to get their asses—”

“ _Would_ you get out,” Mitaka snaps, turning on the intern and gesturing sharply to the door. “Hux and I are trying to prep for this interview.”

Thanisson snaps his gum, and Mitaka twitches. The intern’s only been with them a handful of weeks—another bullshit expense that Darius is funding from who knows where, seeing as Mitaka apparently isn’t privy to the financial information anymore—and he’s already managed to irritate Mitaka in more ways than Mitaka thought were actually possible.

“Out,” Mitaka repeats. “We’re trying to prep.”

“Yeah, I know,” Thanisson says. “They’re ready for him now. That’s why I’m here.”

_Fuck_. Mitaka swallows, takes his glasses off, presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. “Un-here yourself,” he mutters. “Tell them we’re on the way, and I’ll send him up in five.”

“It’s fine,” Hux says coolly. “I’ll go up now.”

Mitaka puts his glasses back on, blinks at Hux. “Pardon?”

“You heard me,” Hux says, his words perfectly enunciated, with not even the slightest hint of a slur. “I’ll go up now, do the interview. See you in a bit.”

And then he’s gone, following after Thanisson, and Mitaka is left standing in the dressing room alone, fingers twitching at his sides. He wonders, off-handedly, if Hux and Thanisson are fucking. They probably are. There’s nothing else to explain how Hux is so deathly calm when the presale numbers have been this bad, when there’s no way they’re actually going to be able to sell enough to—

(He can feel himself start to hyperventilate again, and closes his eyes, forces himself to breathe deeply. Counts to twenty. To forty.)

Opens his eyes, pulls out his phone, with the intention of checking his email on his way to the studio to watch the interview—only his email isn’t connecting.

Mitaka frowns, looks at his cellphone reception. The reception is good, but his email just—isn’t working. He refreshes his inbox. Nothing. Pulls up an internet browser, opens up the company page, and it just—spins.

Their website is down.

Black Sun’s entire website is down.

“No,” he mutters, legs shaking as he stops walking and leans against the wall. “No, no, no, no—”

His phone vibrates in his hand.

“B-black Sun, Dopheld—”

“It’s me,” Phasma says sharply. And then, voice quieter. “We have a problem.”

* 

“Starkiller is, thematically, about the dissolution of disorder, the replacement of disorder with order. The project is meant to demonstrate through kinetic movement how disorder will cause chaos, how everything will eventually fall away, how the pieces will cease to fit together, and then when everything else has disintegrated, only order remains. There are plans in place for a future piece which tracks the path—”

Mitaka can’t get the taste of bile out of his mouth. He’s dizzy, like he might pass out at any given moment, and it absolutely does not matter that he risked a concussion racing up the stairs this quickly, because he has been gesturing at Hux for a full five minutes, and after glancing once in his direction, Hux has steadfastly ignored him in order to continue an interview about a performance that has been—

“And what are you planning to do now that Starkiller has been cancelled?”

Mitaka gags, puts his hand over his mouth. Bites down on his own tongue, stares at the stage, watching Hux stare back at the interviewer, his face going pale.

“Pardon?” Hux asks crisply.

The interviewer doesn’t say anything, just watches him.

There’s a hand on his elbow.

“You okay?” Thanisson asks in an undertone. “You don’t look well.”

If Mitaka opens his mouth, he’s going to scream. Or sob. He wishes for his own death, for a bolt of lightning, for the floor underneath him to collapse and drop him into the basement. Or the subbasement. Or maybe just—

“We had always planned to reschedule the international tour if an extension of the domestic run was needed,” Hux is saying.

Mitaka wants to murder him. It’s not about the international tour, and Hux is being deliberately obtuse—the entire thing has been cancelled—and his email has been turned off—and the website is shut down—and he’s—and he’s—

“Come on,” Thanisson says, narrow fingers pinching at Mitaka’s elbow. “Outside. Fresh air.”

Mitaka lets Thanisson guide him out of the studio, makes it as far as the open door before he realizes this isn’t where he needs to be. He pulls his arm away from Thanisson’s grasp. “Go back and stop the interview,” he says, words quiet and quick. “I don’t care what you do. Get that interview stopped, and get Hux down to the parking garage. I’m going to gather up his things from the dressing room.”

Thanisson blinks at him for a moment, and then nods. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah, I’ll—okay.”

They both turn and go back into the building.

“Hey,” Thanisson says, plucking at Mitaka’s sleeve again.

“What,” Mitaka says, exasperated. “We’re short on time—”

“Right,” Thanisson says, face flushed. “Yeah, I, uh. Yeah, okay. I. Okay.”

* 

Hux is on him the minute Mitaka gets out to the parking garage, face pale and two spots of colour high on his cheeks. “Why the fuck didn’t you _tell me it was cancelled_ ,” he snarls.

“Why didn’t you stop the fucking interview?” Mitaka snaps back, and Hux reels back, stares at him. Both Mitaka’s hands are full—suit bags in one hand and makeup case in the other, and Mitaka shoves the suits at Thanisson without looking to see if he takes them, advances on Hux and jabs him in the middle of the chest with his index finger. “I don’t know how much more clear I could have been by _drawing_ my _hand_ across my _throat_ —you should _not_ have kept talking, and if you’ve made this any worse than what it is—you could’ve faked food poisoning, I made it quite clear you needed to _stop talking_ —”

“How dare you,” Hux growls, stepping closer to him and crowding Mitaka back. “How dare you imply that anything that I’ve said could possibly have caused this. You were the one in charge of the finances, you were the one—”

“ _Darius took that access away_ ,” Mitaka nearly screams—and then his voice catches and he shuts his mouth so hard he bites into his own tongue, tastes metal. Swallows convulsively, tongue throbbing, and looks away, just in time to catch Thanisson staring at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He digs in his pocket, hand shaking, claws out the keys and throws them at Thanisson too. They land on the concrete in front of him, skid forward until they’re just barely touching Thanisson’s feet. “You drive,” Mitaka says. Turns to Hux. “Don’t touch me.” He opens the back door of the van, puts the cases and documentation and everything in, and then makes a point of climbing into the very back row of the van.

Stares out the window as they drive away from the studio, hot tears running down his face.

Tries to get control of himself.

(It’s gone, it’s gone, Starkiller is gone completely—)

* 

Hux’s fury is white-hot by the time they get back to Black Sun. Mitaka expects Hux to tie into him the moment they get inside the studio—after all, Mitaka had wasted the entire seventeen-minute drive back focusing on breathing instead of doing anything productive, like touching base with Phasma, calling Darius, trying to figure out their next moves—but instead, Hux gets out of the van in absolute silence.

Mitaka looks down at his dress shoes as he gets out of the vehicle, swallows, tries to gather together the words that he’s going to say, because he’s not entirely certain where he’s going to—

—there are red and blue lights flashing on the shiny surface of his shoes.

Mitaka looks up.

There are police cars outside Black Sun, uniformed officers standing outside the building. Hux is already striding forward, still in his expensive suit from the interview, his face with that facsimile of upperclass businessman pasted on, as though he’s actually a person underneath the facade instead of just burning rage and a rotating series of addictions.

“Sheeeeeee-it,” Thanisson breathes from next to him.

“Don’t bother unloading,” Mitaka says. He searches the crowd until he finds Phasma, catches her eye, and approaches.

“They forced us all out,” she says in an undertone. “There was a bomb sweep earlier. They didn’t find anything, but we’re not allowed back in. There was a credible threat phoned in earlier, directly to Darius, but we don’t know who…” Her voice trails off, and the corner of her mouth lifts. “Apparently we do. Well.”

Mitaka looks over just in time to watch Hux get cuffed, and led into the back of one of the waiting cruisers. His face is flat, eyes dead, mouth tight.

“Oh god,” Mitaka breathes. “You don’t think…”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Phasma says. “I would believe either option, wouldn’t you?”

Mitaka blinks. Takes a deep breath. Judges where the police cruiser is—and what direction they’re likely to take as they’re driving away—and then walks the exact opposite direction. “Eyes here, please,” he says, raising his voice.

(Finn is already watching him, has been watching the entire time.)

When the dancers turn to look at him, they can no longer see Hux being arrested behind them. Mitaka takes note of the dancers who linger, don’t turn immediately—and then looks at Phasma, and she nods.

That’s sorted, then.

“That’s it for today,” Mitaka continues. “No further rehearsals. It will not be possible to retrieve your personal items today. How many of you left your cellphones behind?”

A small show of hands.

“I’ll contact everyone by email tonight. BCC, but everyone will get the same email,” Mitaka continues. “No later than eight pm, with instructions for next steps, retrieval of personal items, and the changes to our rehearsal schedule.” He takes a deep breath, pulls out his own phone, and pulls up the press release which Phasma had emailed him on his personal account. “In case you haven’t heard, a press release from Black Sun came out earlier today. I did not write it, nor did Phasma, nor did Hux. It reads as follows: _Black Sun Announces the Cancellation of the Starkiller Project, Effective Immediately…”_

He’s vaguely aware as he’s reading that he’s tearing up again, but there’s nothing he can do about it, so he steadies his voice, and keeps going.

* 

Mitaka swallows, black coffee burning down his throat. “I’m sorry,” he says into his cell. “You’re going to have to repeat that.”

“Armitage Hux is no longer in custody.”

Mitaka blinks.

Looks over to Phasma, who is sitting on her couch, carefully counting a stack of cash.

“He’s not there anymore,” he repeats dully, and Phasma looks up, eyes sharp for a moment before she breaks into a vicious smile.

“Is there anything further I can help you with?” the woman on the other end of the line asks.

“…no, thank you,” Mitaka says. He takes the phone away from his ear, stares at it a moment, and then hangs up. “Did he have to pay bail to get out?”

“Fuck if I know,” Phasma says cheerfully. She bands the money, sets it aside, and starts thumbing through the next stack. “But I had no intention of doing it, so this is a best case scenario, really.”

“I think,” Mitaka says tartly, “that a best case scenario would have been him _not getting arrested at all_.”

“The whiskey is on the counter,” Phasma calls over her shoulder, disappearing further back in her apartment with about half the stacks of cash. He can hear vague rummaging sounds coming from the back, and so, for lack of anything better to do, he paces over to her counter, and pours a heavy measure of whiskey into his coffee. Leans back against the counter, sips it, and wishes vaguely for death, the apocalypse, or a sudden collapse of the apartment building he’s standing in.

Specifically, this apartment. Specifically, this exact section of floor, right underneath his feet. He looks down at his feet, shifts over a little so that both feet are perfectly within one of the twelve inch tiles on Phasma’s floor. There.

The collapse can happen at any time.

Any time now.

Any—

“—hold of Darius yet?”

Mitaka starts, looks over at Phasma. She’s holding the last couple of stacks of cash casually in her hands, is tapping one against the others.

“Did you get hold of Darius yet,” she repeats.

“I heard you,” he says.

She arches an eyebrow. “And?”

Mitaka looks down at his phone, at the unsent message to follow the phone calls that have already gone straight to voicemail. “…I was thinking I’d maybe call Hux again.”

Phasma snorts. “He just got out of jail, Dopheld. You’re not his priority right now.”

“I should be,” Mitaka snaps, offended. “He hasn’t got anyone outside of us.”

“He doesn’t have anyone outside of himself,” Phasma says loftily. “It’s been years, Dopheld, how don’t you know this?”

“He has us,” Mitaka repeats, staring down at his phone again. He backspaces the entire text out, makes a show of punching in Darius’ number and holding the phone up to his ear, keeping his face set as steady as he can as he tilts his chin up, stares Phasma down, daring her to say something. The phone rings once, twice. Three times. Five times. It’ll be the answering machine any moment now, so the moment the phone clicks, he starts talking. “This is Dopheld Mitaka, trying to reach—”

“I know who you are,” the woman snarls.

Mitaka starts, steadies himself on the counter. “Elizabeth, my apologies, I was expecting—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you were expecting,” she snaps. “You can fuck off. You and that fucking—”

The phone clicks, and the line goes suddenly silent.

Mitaka exhales heavily. Takes another drink of his coffee, swallows again to bite back the aftertaste once the liquid is down. He should try Darius’ cellphone again, but also—what the fuck is the point? If he hasn’t answered anything yet—he won’t. And Elizabeth is—rightfully upset, really. He thumbs open his text messages.

_Mitaka: I called the station, and learned you’re out already._

_Mitaka: I’m over at Phasma’s, but can head to my apartment or yours if you would prefer._

_Mitaka: Let me know what you need me to do. I have money, if you need it._

He stares at his phone like he’s going to get a response.

He wants a response more than anything.

“Staring at it won’t help,” Phasma says.

Mitaka glances over at her. The stacks of money have all vanished from the table, and Phasma’s changed into a silver mid-thigh robe, her hair hanging long around her face.

“He’ll text back,” Mitaka says.

“Mmm,” she says. “Did you reach Darius?”

“Sort of,” Mitaka demurs. He takes another drink of his coffee, and then stares at the bottom of the empty mug for a few moments before elaborating. “Elizabeth picked up.”

Phasma looks at him blankly.

“His wife,” he says.

“Oh,” Phasma says, in a tone of voice indicating that she really doesn’t care. “So you didn’t reach Darius.”

“She told me to fuck off,” he says. He looks back down at his phone, but it’s frustratingly devoid of new messages. “I texted Hux,” he offers, because the whiskey has made him less cautious than he normally would be. “He hasn’t responded.”

“I doubt he will,” Phasma says. “Did you have anything else you wanted to discuss this evening?”

“Not really, no,” Mitaka says. He glances over at Phasma’s whiskey bottle, and then at her half-full coffee pot. “I was thinking…”

“Don’t bother locking up on your way out,” she says, putting her bare feet up on her coffee table.

“…right,” Mitaka says. “Right, I—yeah.”

He closes the door to her apartment behind her as he leaves.

Checks his text messages on the way down the stairs.

There’s still nothing.

* 

_Kaplan: Last call for Sunday. I don’t suppose your work situation has changed?_

_LittleDoe: Gotten worse, actually. There’s no way I’ll make the gangbang._

_LittleDoe: But thank you for thinking of me._

_Kaplan: Pity._

_LittleDoe: I’m afraid this is strictly a hobby for me._

_Kaplan: Previous message still applies._

* 

“Sir,” comes the voice on the other end of the line. “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

Mitaka exhales through his nose. “This is fine, thank you.”

Phasma raises her eyebrow.

_Finn_ , Mitaka mouths.

Phasma makes a questioning gesture with her hand.

“I wanted to get some clarification on what’s happening with Black Sun,” Finn continues.

“Did you not receive the email?”

“I received the email.”

A pause that Mitaka lets drag out, partially because the email should have been enough—but also because he doesn’t have any information in addition to what he provided in the email, and the email had kept everyone else quiet, so this shouldn’t even be—

“It’s just that I was looking at my contract the other night,” Finn continues on the other end of the line.

Mitaka takes the phone away from his ear, puts it on speaker, and sets it down in the middle of the table.

“—and regardless of the exact legal status of Black Sun, my contract specifies that I’m not actually contracted to Black Sun as a company, I’m contracted to Armitage Hux as a representative of Black Sun, and I have questions about how that’s going to affect us going forward.”

“Go ahead,” Phasma says coolly. “Ask your questions, Finn.”

“Oh,” Finn says, voice startled. “Captain, I didn’t know you were there.”

“Just ask,” Mitaka says wearily. He leans forward, rests his head against the table.

Waits.

* 

The phone rings five times, and then goes to voicemail.

“Hux,” Mitaka says levelly. “It’s been days. I have not heard from you. Phasma has not heard from you.” He swallows, flattens his hand on the countertop. “Phasma and I are meeting with the remainder of Black Sun on Friday to advise them of the path forward. We expect you to be there.” He swallows hard. “We need a game plan.” He counts to five, waits for Hux to pick up—which he doesn’t—and then hangs up on the phone, sets it down on the counter.

Stares at it.

_Call me back, you fuck._

_Call me back and yell at me._

_Call me back and tell me something catty._

_Call me back and gripe to me about how much Phasma’s black market physio hurts._

_Call me back, Hux._

_Call me back._

* 

“—and if that selfish fuck hadn’t been banging Darius, then maybe we wouldn’t _be_ in a situation where we’re trying to find another company to take us on, now that all these goddamn fucking bridges have been burnt—”

“Hold up a moment,” Phasma says, leaning back onto her couch and taking another drink of whiskey. “Back up.”

“If I back up any further, I’ll be pacing right out your door,” Mitaka says, scowling.

“So sit down,” Phasma offers. “Because I want you to repeat that for me again.”

“The metaphorical bridges—”

“Back further.”

“We’ve been trying to find another company—”

“And further.”

“If Hux wasn’t fucking Darius—”

Phasma snorts. “See, that’s what I thought you said.”

“I’m right!” Mitaka snaps. “He’s been fucking Darius—”

“He’s not fucking Darius,” Phasma says.

Mitaka stares at her. “He’s fucking Darius,” he says, voice soft. He can feel his hands shaking again. He really wishes they would stop. “He has to be fucking Darius, he’s been—he’s been drilling this dance company into the ground because he’s too busy fucking Darius—”

“He’s not fucking Darius,” Phasma repeats. She cocks her head. “You know he’s a bastard, right?”

“I don’t see how that has…oh.”

“Oh,” Phasma repeats, mocking. She takes another drink. “Is he leading Darius on? Yes. Has he implied that he will fuck Darius? Yes. Did he destroy that marriage? Without a doubt. Is he actually fucking Darius? No.”

“Because he’s a bastard?” Mitaka repeats in shock. “I don’t, this doesn’t—there’s no way—he has to be—he wouldn’t have behaved like that—not if—”

Phasma shrugs one shoulder. “Are you going to stand there gaping like a fish, or are we going to try to tackle this?”

Mitaka inhales, sinks slowly down to the floor and just sits there for a moment. Flattens his palms against the floor to try and stop them from shaking. “You’re serious, though?”

“Deathly so,” Phasma says. “Come on, Dopheld. We have to find a home for the company, or we’re going to get more people quitting.”

“Right,” Mitaka says. “Right, right. I just…why didn’t he tell me?”

“Why would he have told you?” Phasma asks curiously. “You’re not together, and haven’t been for years. Weren’t you the one who was telling me everything the two of you have ever done—” and here, she gestures vaguely with her hand, because neither of them want to get into the details of this particular disaster “—was all just stress relief?”

“…I did, yeah,” Mitaka responds. “And it was. Is. Whatever.”

“Were you lying to me?”

“No,” Mitaka mutters. “That’s…that’s true.” God knows they’re not compatible, and they _know_ they’re not compatible, it’s just easier to fuck each other with the work schedules that they’ve got to keep—it’s just— _fuck_ , he should have just stuck to hiring sex workers, even though the scheduling is a nightmare. Sex workers are so much fucking _easier_ than Hux has ever been.

“So what does it matter?” Phasma asks. “I’m being serious, I don’t understand why you’re so upset about who you thought Hux was fucking or why you thought he was acting like this.”

“It’s not him,” Mitaka lies. “It’s the situation.” He gets up from the floor, goes to the kitchen and pours himself another coffee, shifts his glasses out of the way and rubs the heel of his hand against his eyes while his back is turned. “Okay,” he says, still facing the wall. “Let’s get this sorted out.” He takes a drink of his coffee, paces back to the couch, and takes a seat a decent distance away from Phasma. Looks at the list of names that she has listed on the clipboard, and then nearly chokes on his coffee. “You don’t seriously have Snoke’s name on here?”

“He’s been calling,” Phasma says coolly.

“Fuck, Hux would never stand for that,” Mitaka says. “And I don’t want to either, he’s as sketchy as hell. It’s like a creepy little experimental dance cult he’s running over there, I’m not touching that with a ten foot pole. Are you seriously considering him? After we already agreed we wouldn’t?”

“Do you see any other feasible options on the list?”

 He sighs, leans back against the couch. “You didn’t have any luck tracking down Rae Sloane, did you?”

Phasma shakes her head. “Couldn’t find her. Or she didn’t want to be found. And she’s been out of the industry since she trained Hux anyway, so it’s not like she’s going to take kindly to an entire dance company showing up on her doorstep looking for a new home.” She glances over at her phone, picks it up, and scrolls through messages. “Well, we’re about half a dance company at this point. I have more resignations coming in.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Mitaka whines. He leans back on the couch, closes his eyes. “Okay. There’s just. Okay. There’s literally nowhere else to go. I’ve called everyone I can think of. You’ve called everyone you can think of. There just aren’t…”

“Well,” Phasma says slowly. “There’s always Brendol.”

“Oh hell no,” Mitaka responds. “You can’t—absolutely no way. You’ve seen how he treats Hux. You’ve seen how Hux is around him. You absolutely cannot turn around and sell our souls to his washed-up father.”

Phasma’s face is completely impassive. “Brendol has the connections. Brendol has access to the money. He knows the sponsors. He’ll be able to glad-hand everything that he needs to in order to get us established again.”

“Right,” Mitaka says, “and then he’ll be nosing around here trying to fuck you, and he’ll be sneering at Armitage right to his face, and he’ll ignore me like I don’t exist just the same as he usually does, and I don’t care if you plan on kicking him in the stomach on the way out, there is nothing he can provide that will springboard us anywhere. The time for that is past. All his connections are old and useless and shrivelled. Put him in the same category as Snoke, for fuck’s sake, and cross them both off your goddamn list.”

Phasma snorts. “That’s an awful lot of feelings you’ve just dredged up there, Dopheld.”

“This is my entire _life_ ,” Mitaka says sullenly. “It’s yours too, only you’re treating this like it’s a goddamn game.”

“Dopheld,” Phasma says. “This _is_ a game to me, and I’m playing it for the long-term. You’re not watching the pieces properly.”

“You know what,” Mitaka says, standing. “I don’t need this right now. I’m going to go home and I’m going to finish getting drunk in my own apartment, and I will contact you when I’m sober again, and we can continue trying to figure out where the fuck we are going to relocate the company.”

She looks up at him, smiling coldly. “You do that,” she says. “But you’d best tuck your heart away somewhere else while we get this figured out, or you’re going to be out on your ass with no money, no prospects, and no career.”

“Hux will fix it,” Mitaka says steadfastly. “When we get ahold of him, he’s going to fix it. I know he will.”

Phasma snorts. “Keep telling yourself that, Dopheld.”

Mitaka lifts his chin, gathers the remnants of his dignity. “I will, thank you.”

* 

“Dopheld speaking,” Mitaka says blearily. He fumbles around on his bedside table until he finds his watch. It’s—oh, ugh. It’s four in the morning. He squints at the ceiling, and then sits up, shifting the pillow behind his back so that he’s slightly more comfortable, and putting on his glasses.

“You need to come over,” Phasma says casually.

Mitaka looks out his window. “The sun isn’t even out.”

“Of course not,” she says. “But you need to come over.” There’s a slight pause. “Armitage is here,” she says, finally.

“…he’s alive?”

“Oh, he’s alive,” she says. “And he’s come up with a solution to our problem.”

“I fucking _told_ you,” Mitaka crows triumphantly, pushing down the vague concern that Hux had gone to Phasma instead of going to him. Nothing good will come of hanging onto that. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, and then hesitates. “Is it…a good solution to our problem?”

Phasma laughs. “You could say that,” she says.

“Is it…?”

“It isn’t Snoke,” she says, “and it isn’t Brendol. It’s…well, you’d best come over here. Promptly.”

* 

Mitaka takes the stairs up to Phasma’s apartment at a run, adjusting his shirt collar as he does. He hasn’t seen Hux in nearly a week, their meeting with Black Sun is in less than thirty hours, and he wants so desperately to know what solution Hux has come up with. Maybe he’s found Rae Sloane, maybe they’re going to a new dance studio, maybe they’ll have someone competent running the damn thing—

Phasma’s door is slightly ajar, so Mitaka goes in, steps out of his shoes, looks into the apartment—and realizes that something is very, very wrong.

“Suspenders,” Phasma drawls from where she’s sitting on the couch. “Cute.” She’s wearing plaid pajama pants and an oversized hoodie with the hood pulled up, bits of her long blonde hair hanging out the bottom of the hood.

Hux, sitting beside her, is wearing his habitual dance clothes—but these ones are old, worn leggings with a snag in the calf, an oversized ratty sweater that Mitaka hasn’t seen him wear in years. There are smudges on his sweater at the collar, and on the sleeves.

There are papers spread out over the entire coffee table. Diagrams, piles of paper, printouts, images. The only thing missing is red string, a corkboard, and a series of pins.

Hux looks up when Mitaka comes in, and breaks into a huge smile. “Mitaka,” he says. His eyes are bloodshot, and his hair is in disarray.

The entire room _reeks_ of alcohol.

“Hux,” Mitaka says. He hasn’t stepped forward from the door yet. “You’re drinking.”

Hux waves his hand vaguely. “I’m free,” he says. “All charges dropped, etcetera.” He hiccups, hand belatedly coming up to cover his mouth. “Anyway, this is cause for celebration.” He gestures to the papers in front of him. “I fucking fixed it. Our entire lives.”

Mitaka looks at Phasma. “Um.”

Phasma leans back, cradling her coffee mug in her hands. “He might not be wrong,” she says. “And I’m absolutely dying to get your input on this, but I think you should go spike yourself a coffee first.”

“I cannot possibly drink whiskey at—at five in the morning.”

“Well, then,” she drawls. “Good thing I got out the Bailey’s for you.”

Mitaka wavers. He should set an example, he knows he should—but this is going to be easier if he’s drinking, it’s going to be easier since the other two already are, and _he’s_ not the one with the drinking problem here.

“Go on, then,” Hux says—and the smile that Mitaka can just barely see from under his hair, which is loose, filthy, and hanging about his face, is ghoulish enough that Mitaka goes straight for the kitchen.

“Just like old times,” Mitaka mutters to himself as he pours himself a coffee, halves it with Bailey’s. He’ll have to go easy on the cocaine, when it inevitably comes out—he doesn’t bounce back as easily as he did a year or so ago.

“Come on,” Hux says from the table, his voice remarkably clear for how drunk he is—though the crispness of his accent has softened, his voice rounding around the edges, tongue slipping in a way that it never does when he’s sober. “I’ve spent days on this, ‘taka—come tell me how brilliant I am.”

Mitaka sighs. Drinks his coffee, and then sloshes some of Phasma’s whiskey in overtop, adds more coffee to cover it up. He sniffs at it, wrinkles his nose—but it smells nicer than Hux is going to smell, because if he’s been on a bender since he got out of jail, he’ll have been sick-sweating it out of his pores for days now. “Alright,” Mitaka says. He walks over to the couch, cautious of how full his mug is, and how quickly Phasma will kick him out if he spills any of it.

Hux is leaning back on the couch, grinning. One of his arms is behind Phasma’s back, and while they’re not touching, she hasn’t moved away from him either—and it’s so bizarre that Mitaka can’t pull his eyes away to look at any of the papers on the actual table. “So,” Hux starts. “We’re out of options.”

Phasma rolls her eyes. “I told him,” she says to Mitaka, “that we haven’t contacted Snoke yet.”

“And we won’t,” Hux and Mitaka both say in unison.

“There!” Hux exclaims, pointing at Mitaka and staring to get off the couch before wavering and abruptly sitting back down. “Told you he fucking knew, Phasma, he’s smarter, he fucking knows.”

“No need for that,” Mitaka says softly, feeling his face heat. “Why don’t you just tell me what it is, Armitage?” Then Mitaka ducks his head, so that Hux will stop looking at him—and immediately stills.

One of the pages, close to the top, is a series of sketches of military uniforms. Jackboots, long coats, command caps, the entire villainous aesthetic. It’s not an unusual thing for them, they’ve done dance pieces like that before—but the sketch on the end is of that of a nearly-naked man, wearing only a chest harness. The face is featureless, but the anonymous figure is wearing a ball gag. Mitaka reaches out, carefully grips the edge of the paper, and gives it a light tug. The rest of the sketches are not dissimilar—all faceless and featureless, all wearing military fetish gear in varying stages of decency.

_(You’ll like the bangee. Six feet tall, broad, wears a mask.)_

Mitaka swallows. His mouth is dry. He can’t make eye contact with Phasma, because if he does, his face is going to give him away completely. Instead, he carefully bends down and sets the mug on the floor, out of the way of everything so that it won’t get knocked over, and then just as carefully straightens, reaches over, and taps the third drawing, the dancer with the ball gag. “You’ll have to be particularly cautious with the choreography here, this dancer won’t be able to breathe—”

Hux laughs, his face alight with mania.

“What?”

Even Phasma is grinning. Sharp, vicious.

“Okay, what?” Mitaka repeats. “I don’t get it, what am I missing?”

“It’s not a dance piece,” Phasma says easily. “It’s not even a dance company.”

“You said it yourself,” Hux says, standing up, and bracing himself on the couch for a moment before he runs his hand back through his hair. “We’re done as a dance company.”

“I’ve never said that,” Mitaka says carefully, even though they all know it’s true. He’s still staring down at the sketches.

“Come on, ‘taka,” Hux says, voice low and ragged. “I know you’re a kinky fuck.”

It’s half-affectionate, and half a slur, and totally, completely true.

“Sit down, Armitage,” Phasma says.

Hux wavers, and sits back down heavily. “Anyway, no dance company will take us,” he says airily. “And I own everyone’s contracts, I can dissolve them at will. We can start fresh.”

Mitaka pushes up his glasses, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I just need some clarification,” Mitaka says. “You’re going to—let all of the dancers go.”

“Yes,” Hux says.

“And then the three of us—I assume that’s why we’re here—the three of us are just going to…” Mitaka looks down at the papers again. There are sketches of rooms, printed pictures of the exteriors of castles, floor plans, diagrams…

“We’re going to run a sex dungeon,” Phasma says. “Yes.”

“High-class brothel,” Hux corrects. He hiccups once, and then stands, unsteadily. “I’ll be back,” he says.

Mitaka watches him go, and then turns back to Phasma. “You’re not concerned about him?”

“He was sick already before he got here,” Phasma says. “So no.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Mitaka leans forward, starts shuffling through the papers again, only looking up when he realizes that Phasma is watching him curiously. “What?”

“You’ve handed over so much blackmail material to him,” Phasma says. “It’s fascinating.”

“Blackmailing people for their sexual preference is cruel,” Mitaka says primly. “He would never.”

“ _I_ would blackmail you for the colour of your tie,” she says. “And you’ve just handed over—”

“Phasma, I have the symbol tattooed on the back of my neck, I can’t _be_ subtle about it. It’s part of who I am.”

“Well,” she says. “If this gets pulled off, it’ll be your job, too.”

Mitaka looks down at the papers again, sighs. “You’re not…concerned, though?”

“How so?”

“It’s just—he gets hauled into jail and charged with—whatever the fuck he was charged with, and then he gets out with all the charges dropped—and we still have no idea how he managed that, or whether or not he actually _did_ anything—like you said, it’s fifty/fifty—and then he’s off the radar for days, and he shows back up again—with plans for an entire _sex dungeon_ and we’re just…accepting that?”

“Do _you_ have any better ideas?” Phasma asks. “Because you’ve seen my list—I sure as fuck don’t.”

“Whaddya say?” Hux asks, coming back into the front room, his regular grace made unsteady by his decreased coordination. “You in, ‘taka?”

Mitaka hesitates, then frown. “You’re, uh. You’re okay, though? Being out as kinky?”

Hux snorts inelegantly. “Who cares.”

“No,” Mitaka insists. “ _You_ care. You wouldn’t even set up an account on that _X_ app, you made _me_ do everything. I’m just concerned—”

“Don’t mother me,” Hux snaps. “I know what I want, and I deserve—” He sways on his feet, overcorrects, catches himself with one narrow hand clenched on the back of the couch. “I deserve this,” he says softly.

Mitaka’s chest clenches. He wants what he can’t have—he wants a version of Hux that is out and honest, a version of Hux where they can do these things together, a version of Hux that isn’t repressed and angry and upset all the time—but he’s looking at a drunk, lonely man, sweating stale alcohol out his pores.

No. That’s cruel.

He wants a version of Hux that is out and honest, and this is the first step toward getting it. “Phasma,” Mitaka says softly. “You on board?”

“Might as well be,” she says, shrugging.

“There,” Hux says, gesturing at her. “At least _she_ believes in me. I’m getting another drink.”

_I don’t_ , Phasma mouths as Hux turns toward the kitchen. “And you shouldn’t either,” she adds softly.

“I want to,” Mitaka says quietly. “I want to so badly.”

“This is your funeral,” Phasma says.

“…but what if it isn’t,” Mitaka says. “What if this works?” He leans forward, flips through the drawings again. All the reference images Hux has clipped out, the sketches he’s made. The medical kink room, the torture chamber, a room with a set of stocks on a raised stage and seating for fifty people. “I told you he would come through for us—don’t ruin this for me.” His heart is beating faster, and his hands are starting to shake again, but—what if this does work?

What if this is everything they’ve ever wanted?

What if Hux is the one that gives it to them?

What if every single shred of faith he’s ever held in Armitage Hux is about to be paid back, tenfold, and he gets the career of his dreams, financial independence, and the ability to hire staff to do all the shit he hates doing? He brushes his fingers across one of the uniform sketches. Jodhpurs and military tunics with rank stripes on the sleeves, black command caps, a black rubber baton hanging from one hip and a set of metal handcuffs from the other. He can do this.

Mitaka would be _delighted_ to do this.

Phasma chuckles, leans back on the couch. “So, you’ll stage manage a coven of sex workers?”

“Yeah,” Mitaka says, the excitement starting to bubble up in him. He can’t seem to stop grinning. “I’ll stage manage a coven of sex workers.” He picks out the sketch of the medical kink room, slides it in Phasma’s direction. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t love the hell out of this room.”

She glances down, and then grins and cracks her knuckles. “I could be convinced to make masochists cry,” she admits.

“Now then,” Hux says, passing out glasses that are full to the brim with straight whiskey, and sitting carefully back down on the couch. “Let me give you the pitch on the project.” He reeks of stale alcohol, and his breath is foul, but his eyes are sparkling with excitement.

Mitaka can’t remember the last time he saw Hux excited about _anything_.

Hux leans forward, shuffles through his papers, and then tugs one to the top—a starburst symbol on a hexagon background, black on red. “This is our logo. The project is called _Finalizer_. I want to pitch this as a…what do you call it…a high-class experience, a lifestyle…thing…something that’s—”

*

_Mitaka: Just wanted to reiterate again now that I’ve slept that I’m so ecstatic that you’re bringing us along with you on the Finalizer project. This is a phenomenal opportunity for all of us, and I’m so, so excited to get started._

_Mitaka: I started on the market research. I’m sending an email right away here with the research I’ve done so far, and possible locations that we could look at. There are a couple of nearby areas where the laws are a little more permissive—I know you think Tatooine is a desert wasteland, but D’Qar is about the same distance out from here, and the laws are similar there, so that’s definitely an option in terms of a permanent location._

_Mitaka: I also pulled together some information on possible suppliers we could start building relationships with. We’ll have to talk finances, but I have some ideas for fundraising, and am willing to commit my own money to this as well to get us going._

_Mitaka: Again, thank you._

_Mitaka: I’m drafting a speech for you for the remaining dancers tomorrow. It’ll just outline why we’re leaving, offer reference letters, all that type of thing. Sweeten the deal as much as we can to compensate for the broken contracts._

_Mitaka: I don’t know if you want to give any of them the option to swap their contracts over to Finalizer, but I discussed with Phasma, and she’s willing to approach it on a case-by-case basis if you think any of them would be a good fit. However, there can’t be any contract transitions—these ones need to be broken entirely, and they’ll need to come to us of their own accord later, once First Order is established, and ready to hire additional employees._

_Mitaka: I’ve waited years for this, Hux. Thank you._

_Mitaka: Thank you so much._

_*_

They use the rehearsal hall at Black Sun for the last time. Mitaka and Phasma had spent the morning combing through the building, gathering up all the personal possessions they could find, and  putting them all into a box. There are hired security guards here, now, on behalf of the landlord, glaring at every dancer that comes in, and checking the bags of every dancer that leaves.

There’s not many of them left, now. More dancers than Mitaka would like to admit had given their notice after the initial lockout, and the remaining group that has gathered is smaller than what Mitaka had anticipated. It makes something twist uncomfortably in his stomach, even though he knows they’re just letting everyone go anyway.

“Seen Hux?” Phasma asks. She’s wearing a white blouse with black pants, and Mitaka has to crane his neck to look up at her due to the height of her heels.

“Not yet,” Mitaka replies, tapping his clipboard against his thigh, and wondering if it’s worth the scrutiny from the security guards to duck outside for another smoke. “He’s probably—oh, no, back of the hall, just coming in.”

Coming in, oddly enough, flanked by Finn and Zeroes, the former gesturing with his hands as he talks while Hux steadfastly ignores him. Has Hux told them about Finalizer already? He wouldn’t have thought any interest would be coming from Finn, but Zeroes—Zeroes, Mitaka can kinda see.

(He squints down the aisle at Zeroes as he approaches, and then immediately changes his mind. They must have been talking to Hux about something else. There’s no way.)

“There you are,” Mitaka says, the knot in his stomach unwinding. He moves in close to Hux, noting the way that both Finn and Zeroes fall away, and makes a mental note to ask Hux about the conversation later. Maybe after they’ve signed the paperwork to get First Order up and running. Mitaka has everything for that printed off too, filled in to the best of his ability. “I included two versions of your talking points in there—you didn’t get back to me about the details, but that’s fine, I’ve been busy with the research and I have more of that to discuss with you after—”

Hux takes the clipboard from Mitaka’s hand without a word, walks to the front of the room and raps sharply on the table. “Attention, everyone,” he says.

There’s a dull murmur throughout the room as everyone finds a seat. Hux is stationary during, not making eye contact with anyone. There’s something odd about him that Mitaka can’t quite put his finger on. It’s not the hair—Hux has it gelled back just the same as he usually does. The all-black ensemble isn’t that unusual either, though Hux usually does favour a pale blue. The long narrow tunic he’s wearing over his leggings is a bit out of the ordinary, but nothing that should be ringing alarm bells. Still, though—something about this feels strange.

Hux sets the clipboard down on the table, flips it open.

There’s a flash of red on his palm—marks from digging his nails into his own flesh, the return of a habit Mitaka hasn’t seen Hux succumb to in years. Since before Starkiller. His stomach twists. He frowns, looks back at Phasma, spreading his hand in a question.

(Finn, sitting next to Phasma, immediately sits up a little straighter, watches them like a hawk. It won’t matter, after today. All the indiscretions Finn has seen won’t matter at all.)

Phasma extends her thumb and little finger out from her closed fist, tips them back toward her in a sharp motion, shakes her head—and then Mitaka realizes.

Hux doesn’t smell like alcohol.

He doesn’t smell like alcohol, and his pupils are undilated. He looks like absolute hell—but he’s not sniffing or wavering on his feet, and if he’s digging his nails into his palms again, there’s only one conclusion to be made.

Hux is dead sober.

He’s dead sober, but still under enough stress to have scored marks into his own flesh, and something about this situation is—

“Thank you for coming,” Hux says. “I’ve assembled everyone here in the aftermath of Starkiller, a stunning project whose cancellation is as much a surprise to me as it was to you.” He pauses, there, a pause Mitaka knows is entirely calculated, down to the second. “I know this has been a slightly longer break than the time we asked of you, and I appreciate your patience.” He looks down at the notes Mitaka had left for him, flips one of the pages over.

Mitaka’s stomach flips over unpleasantly, and he puts his hand on the table to brace himself, a sick feeling of dread curling down his spine.

He knows the back of the pages are blank. He knows he put them into the clipboard correctly.

Hux is off-script.

It’s less than a minute into the meeting, and Hux is off-script.

“I’m quite certain you have questions,” Hux continues, “and we’ll get to them in time.” He closes the clipboard, makes eye contact with each of them in turn, his gaze drifting over every single person equally. “I’ve been working diligently since last week in order to find a home for all of us—but due to the scope of the work that Black Sun has been creating, and the calibre at which we’re performing, it was difficult in order to find a home for all of us as a unit so that we can continue the stellar work we’ve been doing.” He comes out from behind the podium, sits down on the table, posture careful.

He won’t make eye contact with Mitaka.

Why is he stalling? Why is he talking about the calibre of their work?

What was wrong with Mitaka’s script?

“I’m pleased to announce today,” Hux continues, “that I have found us that home. A place that will allow us to continue our work as a dance company, and continue to further our careers and our personal development. Our new home is with Snoke’s Knights of Ren, an experimental dance troupe based out of Citadel. We start on Monday.”

Behind him, Mitaka can hear Phasma exhale heavily. His own ears are ringing. He’s lost feeling in his toes.

“Citadel is miles from here,” Zeroes drawls. “That’s a big ask.”

“By all means,” Hux says. “Feel free not to join the rest of the company—but that will be the end of your contracts under me, and good luck getting on with someone else.”

“We were contracted under Black Sun,” Nines objects. “And Black Sun is bankrupt now, so we’re all free—”

“He’s right,” Mitaka says, instincts taking over even though he feels like he’s going to be sick if he stands. “If you’ll consult with your contracts—and I have digital copies that I can pull up on request—everyone in this room, myself and Phasma included, is contracted directly to Hux as a representative of Black Sun, not to the company itself.” Mitaka turns to look at Nines—and sees that Finn has already stuck his hand up in the air.

Hux ignores him. “Mitaka is correct, as always. I hardly think I need to lower myself to discuss standard contractual language, you’re all adults.”

“Finn has a question,” Phasma says bluntly.

Mitaka looks back at her. Her eyes are closed, her head tipped toward the ceiling.

“Yeah,” Finn says, “I do.” He stands up, gestures around. “Not everybody is here.”

“Everybody who is contracted—”

“Not everybody is here,” Finn insists. “I talked to Slip this morning, and he didn’t even know this meeting was happening.”

“In the aftermath of Starkiller, sacrifices must be made,” Hux says curtly.

That’s what this feels like.

A sacrifice.

“I am not an infinite monetary resource,” Hux continues. “I cannot afford to pay for everyone’s vacation for a week out of my own pocket if they’re underperforming.”

“I—”

“Did you want,” Hux says, voice deadly calm, “to discuss Slip’s performance? Because I’ve been advised that you are _well_ aware of his particular deficiencies.”

Mitaka feels like a deficiency right now. Like the entire room is closing in on him.

He knew better than this. He knew so much better than this, and yet, he’s still caught by it. Tied on the end of a string. He’s never going to be able to breathe again.

The knot in his stomach is never going to unwind.

“Let it be, Finn,” Phasma says. “We’ve had this discussion.”

“I just—”

“I’ll release your contract,” Hux threatens, standing up and taking a few steps forward. “Would you prefer that I release your contract?”

“I’m a good dancer,” Finn insists.

“I know,” Hux says.

“My contract can’t be released unless I’m—”

“Sit,” Phasma says.

Mitaka watches in shock as she reaches out, puts her pale hand on Finn’s bare arm, exerts the smallest bit of pressure.

Finn goes down easy, sits back in the chair like he never moved even though his jaw is tight.

Hux takes a step back, leans against the table. “Pack light. Snoke has advised that there are dormitories available on-site, but I have not yet had the opportunity to travel out and inspect them, and we will be moving if they’re unsatisfactory. Once the accommodations are sorted out, Mitaka will advise you of the budget for the remainder of the move, and you’ll be reimbursed for all costs within that budget as long as appropriate documentation is provided.” Hux makes a calculated facial expression that doesn’t reach his eyes, a facsimile of a smile. “My sincerest apologies,” he says, and his voice is cold, cold, cold. “I assure you that your work on Starkiller was sound, and its failure had everything to do with the artistic director of Black Sun and his…inability to keep his personal life separate from his private life, much less the mess he made of the finances. Snoke and I have already begun to plan the next major production, properly funded this time, and I look forward to beginning work with you once we’ve relocated. That’s it. Mitaka will contact you with the details.”

Shocked silence.

(This is what the end of the world feels like. Emptiness, desolation, and a ringing in his ears that will not cease.)

Phasma is the first to stand.

“Told you so,” she says to Mitaka under her breath—and then she leaves the rehearsal hall. As though her presence was what was tying the rest of the dancers to their seats—and, considering their loyalty to her, maybe it was—the rest of the dancers stand, one by one, and go after her.

Finn lingers until the end, and Mitaka dreads what will happen when he opens his mouth—but then he, too, sets his shoulders and leaves the rehearsal hall.

Hux picks up the clipboard, sets it down on the chair next to Mitaka, and turns as though he, too, will exit the hall.

“I can’t believe you,” Mitaka says.

The words echo in the empty room.

Hux stops, shoulders tensing. He turns around, crosses his arm over his chest. “What?”

“The fuck was that?” Mitaka asks, voice low and shaking.

“Snoke offered me a really good deal,” Hux says calmly. “It would have been foolish not to take him up on it, especially with the momentum we have from a project as ambitious as—”

“God help you,” Mitaka snaps, “if you say Starkiller one more time.” He exhales shakily, tries to pull himself together. “You promised me—”

“I did what was best for the company,” Hux says.

“You sold us to an old man in a gold bathrobe,” Mitaka snaps.

Hux smiles coldly. “That’s a cruel thing to say, I hadn’t expected that from you. Like I said, I did what was best for the company.” He turns again, heads toward the door of the rehearsal hall.

Mitaka pulls out his phone, punches in a search with trembling fingers. The website for the Knights is minimal, understated. They’ve got a solid web presence, content available by subscription, and—

“They already have a principal dancer,” Mitaka calls out. He holds up his phone, even though Hux is silhouetted in the entrance to the hall, and won’t be able to see it. “Somebody named Kylo Ren. What the hell kind of deal did you—”

“Everything is still being finalized,” Hux says blithely. “It’ll work in our favour.”

Mitaka looks down at his phone, and then up at Hux. There’s the hint of a smile playing at the corners of Hux’s mouth, and that’s when Mitaka knows.

“What did he give you?” he asks. “What was worth stabbing the entire company in the back just to get what you wanted?”

Hux smiles. “I’ll be made artistic director,” he says. “It’s a position Darius wouldn’t let go of.”

“We already had positions,” Mitaka says. “I have the paperwork for First Order right here, it’s ready to sign, I have—”

“Oh, grow up,” Hux says, without any malice or emotion in the words. “I saved your job, didn’t I?”

Mitaka exhales slowly. “I would rather be unemployed,” he says softly, “and working on Finalizer, than packing all of my belongings and moving to some sort of a experimental dance cult, and you knew that.”

“I knew you needed—”

“I told you what I needed,” Mitaka retorts. “I needed the Finalizer project.”

Hux glares at him. “It’s off,” he says, finally. “Cancelled. Pack it up, put it back in the box, let it rot. It’s not going to happen.”

Mitaka holds his ground while Hux stares at him.

Hux breaks first, walks out of the room, leaves the door open behind him.

Mitaka sits in the empty rehearsal hall for a long time, afterwards.

He keeps waiting to cry.

His eyes burn, but the tears don’t come.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Chapter Warnings:** pervasive company-related financial anxiety and continued references to drug and alcohol use | brief non-explicit references to a consensual gangbang with a hired sex worker | Mitaka wonders if Hux and Thanisson are fucking; they aren’t - it looks like Thanisson is crushing on Mitaka, but Mitaka doesn’t see it | verbal argument between Hux and Mitaka, they both get up in each other’s faces, but the only physical contact is Mitaka jabbing Hux in the chest with his finger | Mitaka throws a set of keys in Thanisson’s direction; they land at his feet | it’s implied Hux phoned in a bomb threat against his own dance studio; the charges are later dropped | the marriage between Darius and his wife is implied to have been broken up due, in part, to Hux’s actions | Hux is confirmed to have not been fucking Darius; this does not make any of his actions ethical | Hux being a bastard is discussed casually and factually; Hux isn’t in the room at the time | Mitaka accuses Brendol (not present in the scene) of wanting to fuck Phasma; Phasma is nonplussed | Hux has been binge-drinking off screen; he’s tanked by the time Mitaka sees him, and continues to drink throughout the scene | Mitaka suggests Hux has an alcohol problem in the narrative; he’s not wrong | Hux calls Mitaka a kinky fuck; Mitaka notes it in the narration as “half-affectionate, and half a slur” as well as being true | Hux discusses firing all the dancers en masse | Hux has a plan to run what he’s calling a high-class brothel; sex work is legal in the areas they’re discussing setting up shop | Phasma implies Mitaka’s sexual preferences are blackmail-worthy, Mitaka disagrees | Hux is implied to be heavily closeted about his kink; no one else feels being closeted is necessary | Mitaka speculates about whether Zeroes is kinky, but not in detail | Hux backstabs Mitaka and Phasma pretty significantly, and subsequently threatens Finn with dismissal | Phasma puts her hand on Finn’s arm to get him to sit down; Finn sits without objecting |
> 
> **End Notes:** Well, that was just cruel, Hux. For fuck's sake, dude. That was the closest we've seen Phasma to being enthusiastic about a thing, and also, I think you broke Mitaka.
> 
> There is a moodboard for this chapter, available on [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/618134).
> 
> There's a blog entry for the chapter over on [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/4031.html).
> 
> I am on [twitter](https://twitter.com/heyktula), [dreamwidth](https://ktula.dreamwidth.org/), [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/heyktula), and [pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/ktula).
> 
> Thank you for reading! That's it for this fic .... please feel free to scream at me in any of the above venues.
> 
> The Hux-POV prequel-sequel longfic, Aphelion, is next up in this verse. I post regularly about my WIPs on twitter, and semi-regularly on dreamwidth, but feel free to ask questions anytime. Thank you for reading--I appreciate your support so much.


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